A senior Ukrainian official confirms: Trump pressured Zelensky to give up Donbas

US President Donald Trump put pressure on his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky for Ukraine to cede the entire Donbas region to Russia in order to end the war launched by Russia, during their meeting held at the White House on Friday, a senior Ukrainian official told Agence France Presse on Tuesday, writes Agerpres.

According to this official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the American president urged his Ukrainian counterpart to withdraw his troops from the territories he still controls in eastern Ukraine, this being one of the main demands of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Friday's meeting between Trump and Zelenskiy was “tense and difficult,” the Ukrainian official confirmed, adding that Washington's diplomacy on the matter leaves Kiev with the impression that it is “going around in circles,” a reference to Trump's frequent changes of position.

And other sources with knowledge of this discussion also spoke of a tense meeting, in which the American president put aside the maps of the front presented by the Ukrainians, swore all the time and asked his Ukrainian counterpart to accept Russia's proposals, otherwise he risks the destruction of his country.

The meeting “was pretty bad” and “(Trump's) message was: 'your country will freeze and be destroyed' if Ukraine does not make a deal with Russia,” said one of these sources, according to Reuters.

According to the Financial Times, Trump asked Zelensky to hand over the entire Donbas region, consisting of Donetsk and Lugansk provinces, to Russia. Russian troops almost completely control the latter, but only partially the former.

At the summit that Trump and Putin had in August, the Russian leader would have proposed that Ukraine withdraw completely from Donbas and instead Russia freeze the rest of the front line. But, in the last discussion that Trump had with Putin on Thursday, before Friday's meeting with Zelensky, the Russian president would have taken a step back and would have suggested returning to Ukraine small portions occupied by Russian troops in the southern Ukrainian provinces of Kherson and Zaporozhye, in exchange for complete Russian control in Donbas, writes the Financial Times.

However, the Kremlin has denied that it has changed its position from that expressed in August, and Trump has also denied that he has asked Zelensky to cede Donbas to Russia. “No, we've never discussed that,” Trump said when asked by reporters on Sunday about such a request.

But in a later Fox News interview, Trump said Putin would “take something.” Describing the areas of Ukraine occupied by Russian troops as “property”, he added: “I mean, they fought and they have a lot of property.”

Instead, the American president agreed to a cease-fire before negotiations that would depart from the current situation on the front line, therefore Zelenski appreciated that his visit to the White House was a success, although he did not obtain from Trump the Tomahawk missiles he had requested.

Putin and Zelenskiy “must stop where they are. Let them both claim victory. Let history decide,” the American president said in a message on the Truth Social platform after the meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart, in which he urged Putin and Zelenskiy to reach an agreement and stop the bloodshed.