WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to surrender parts of Ukraine’s territory to Russia during a tense meeting on Friday, according to two people briefed on the discussions. The exchange reportedly left the Ukrainian delegation “disappointed,” as Trump also refused to provide long-range Tomahawk missiles and suggested giving security guarantees to both Kyiv and Moscow.
The two sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Trump’s comments confused Ukrainian officials, who had sought stronger U.S. support in their ongoing war with Russia.
Following the meeting, Trump publicly called for a ceasefire along the current battle lines — a proposal that Zelenskiy later appeared to support in remarks to reporters. A third source said the idea emerged after Zelenskiy insisted he would not voluntarily cede territory.
“The meeting ended with (Trump’s) decision to make a ‘deal where we are, on the demarcation line,’” the third source said.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday, Trump reaffirmed his stance: “We think that what they should do is just stop at the lines where they are, the battle lines. The rest is very tough to negotiate if you’re going to say, ‘you take this, we take that.’”
When asked if he told Zelenskiy that Ukraine must give up the entire Donbas region, Trump replied, “Let it be cut the way it is. It’s cut up right now. I think 78% of the land is already taken by Russia. You leave it the way it is right now. They can… negotiate something later on down the line.”
The meeting, while not considered disastrous, was nonetheless disappointing for the Ukrainian side, which had hoped to secure Tomahawk missiles capable of striking deep inside Russian territory. U.S. Vice President JD Vance later told reporters that Trump had not yet decided whether to approve the missile transfer.
The Ukrainian president’s office declined to comment. The Financial Times first reported some details of the conversation on Sunday.
Recent developments suggest Trump had been shifting toward greater support for Kyiv, including remarks at the United Nations General Assembly in September suggesting Ukraine could eventually reclaim lost territory. However, Friday’s meeting indicates a renewed push from Trump for a swift peace deal, even one that could prove unfavorable to Ukraine.
According to multiple sources, U.S. officials raised the possibility of a territorial swap, an idea Trump had previously considered under which Ukraine would surrender Donetsk and Luhansk in exchange for small parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. The sources said Trump emphasized that a quick agreement was “essential.”
“It was pretty bad,” one source said. “The message was, ‘Your country will freeze, and your country will be destroyed’ if Ukraine doesn’t make a deal with Russia.” Another source denied that Trump used the word “destroyed” but confirmed he resorted to profanity several times during the meeting.
Two of the sources said Trump appeared to be influenced by a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin the day before. According to The Washington Post, Putin proposed a territorial exchange similar to what U.S. officials presented to Zelenskiy on Friday.
Ukrainian officials have strongly rejected the idea of ceding Donetsk and Luhansk, saying the remaining territory under Kyiv’s control is strategically vital. One source said surrendering the regions would be tantamount to “suicide,” as it would leave the rest of Ukraine vulnerable to further Russian offensives.
U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff reportedly pressed the Ukrainians hardest to consider the Russian proposal, arguing that Donetsk and Luhansk have “significant Russian-speaking populations.”
Trump, who said last week he would meet Putin soon in Budapest, continues to pursue diplomatic engagement with Moscow. A Kremlin aide confirmed that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov are expected to hold preparatory talks ahead of that summit.
A previous Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska in August ended without any breakthroughs.
Edgardo Hernal started college at UP Diliman and received his BA in Economics from San Sebastian College, Manila, and Masters in Information Systems Management from Keller Graduate School of Management of DeVry University in Oak Brook, IL. He has 25 years of copy editing and management experience at Thomson West, a subsidiary of Thomson Reuters.
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