Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reaffirmed that he would not accept any plan for his nation to cede territory to Russia in a bid to end the war, dismissing an idea that former President Donald Trump reportedly favors.
“If the deal is that we just give up our territories, and that’s the idea behind it, then it’s a very primitive idea,” Zelenskyy said in an interview with Axel Springer media outlets. “I think if he really has a formula and an approach on how to end the war quickly. I need very strong arguments. I don’t need a fantastic idea. I need a real idea, because people’s lives are at stake.”
Zelenskyy has long refused a land swap to end the war, but his renewed opposition comes after The Washington Post reported that Trump privately favors a long-shot deal that would require Ukraine to give control of Crimea and the Donbas border region to Russia.
The former president has publicly boasted that his dealmaking prowess would allow him to broker an end to the war within a day of taking office. If Trump would champion such a plan, it would mark a major departure from President Joe Biden’s foreign policy.
In a statement to the Post, Trump’s campaign cast doubt on any claims that the former president has formulated a way to end the war.
“Any speculation about President Trump’s plan is coming from unnamed and uninformed sources who have no idea what is going on or what will happen,” campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to the Post. “President Trump is the only one talking about stopping the killing.”
Exclusive: We spent the day in and around #Kharkiv with President @ZelenskyyUa , visited new defense lines and did a 35 minutes long interview with him about the situation here in the east, US package, new weapons, Taurus-Discussions, his view on negotiations, Trumps reaction… pic.twitter.com/Z69XAR0f0f
— Paul Ronzheimer (@ronzheimer) April 9, 2024
Zelenskyy cautioned that in talks about ending the war, Russian President Vladimir Putin could not be trusted.
“We are dealing with Putin. Everything he has said so far, he has done differently,” Zelenskyy said. “That means we can’t trust him. I mean, the idea has to be such that it leaves Putin no room. No room to carry out his plans. Do you understand? He has to be backed into a corner, so to speak, so that he can’t improvise. You can agree on all sorts of things. The question is whether he keeps to the agreements.”
Trump has pushed GOP lawmakers to reject a $95.3 billion bipartisan Senate aid package that would give aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.
Zelenskyy said he remains optimistic that the Congress will pass additional assistance, but it remains unclear how Speaker Mike Johnson will move forward. Some Republicans, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, have threatened to oust Johnson if he moves to grant more aid to Ukraine.
Trump has floated the possibility of extending a loan to Ukraine, though in May he refused to say during a CNN town hall whether he would want Russia or Ukraine to win the war.
His position has put him in opposition to figures such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who favor a more Reagan-era interventionist foreign policy. McConnell has made fighting for Ukraine aid one of the last major focal points of his decades in Congress.
Zelenskyy told Axel Springer that Trump is interested in the Ukrainian leader’s invitation to visit his nation. Biden went in February 2023.
“We said that we would like Donald Trump to come to Ukraine, see everything with his own eyes, and draw his own conclusions,” Zelenskyy said. “In any case, I am ready to meet him and discuss the issue. This issue is very important for us.”
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