US President Donald Trump has said he will try to get some territory back for Ukraine during his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.
“Russia’s occupied a big portion of Ukraine. They occupied prime territory. We’re going to try to get some of that territory back for Ukraine,” he told a news conference at the White House.
He and the Russian president are due to hold talks in Alaska at the end of the week. Trump claimed that he could know within two minutes of meeting Putin whether progress was possible.
He said Friday would be a “feel-out meeting” aimed at urging Putin to end the war – suggesting he may view the summit as just an initial encounter.
Trump again warned that there would be “some swapping, changes in land” between Russia and Ukraine.
It is not the first time he has used the phrase “land-swapping”, though it is unclear what land Russia could cede to Ukraine. Kyiv has never laid claim to any Russian territories.
Trump said he will update European leaders if Putin proposes a “fair deal” during the talks, adding that he would speak to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky first “out of respect”.
“I’ll call him first… I’ll call him after, and I may say, ‘lots of luck, keep fighting,’ or I may say, ‘we can make a deal'”, he said.
Trump also said that while he and Zelensky “get along”, he “very severely disagrees with what [the Ukrainian president] has done”. Trump has previously blamed Zelensky for the war in Ukraine, which was sparked by Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022.
He stated that a future meeting could include Zelensky and could be a three-way session including himself and Putin.
Kaja Kallas, vice-president of the European Commission, told the BBC Putin wants to “go for the old fashioned way of…let’s divide the territories and spheres of influence” in his talks with Trump.
But she stressed that Europe has been clear it will not accept a deal Ukraine has not agreed to.
“If Ukraine is not part of the deal, any deal will just not be implemented and that is the reason why Ukraine needs to be around that table,” she said, adding that she hopes Zelensky will be invited to the meeting.
The Kremlin has always played down expectations of a meeting with Zelensky, with Putin reiterating recently the conditions to meet the Ukrainian president were still far off.
Trump announced the meeting with Putin last Friday – the day of his self-imposed deadline for Russia to agree to a ceasefire or face more US sanctions.
In response to news of the Alaska summit, Zelensky said any agreements without input from Kyiv would amount to “dead decisions”.
On Monday, he cited a report from Ukraine’s intelligence service saying there was no sign Russia was preparing to put an end to the fighting in Ukraine.
Zelensky is expected to attend a virtual meeting with Trump, US Vice-President JD Vance, and EU leaders on Wednesday.
A spokesman for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he invited the leaders, as well as EU and Nato chiefs, to discuss how to pressure Moscow ahead of Trump’s meeting with Putin.
During a phone call on Monday, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his Canadian counterpart Mark Carney agreed that a peace agreement “must be built with Ukraine – not imposed upon it”, a Downing Street spokesperson said.
The two leaders will “continue to work closely” with both Trump and Zelensky “over the coming days”, they added.
