Russia pointed to its constitution in response to a remark by U.S. President Donald Trump that there would likely be a “swapping of territories” in a deal that ended Moscow’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
Trump is due to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday, August 15, to discuss a peace deal. Territorial control is a key issue. Russia has seized around a fifth of Ukrainian land in the east. Ukraine controls no Russian territory.
Asked about Trump’s suggestion that Russia and Ukraine could swap land, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexei Fadeev said at a press briefing on Wednesday that there is “no need to even invent anything territorial”.
“The structure of the Russian Federation is enshrined in the Constitution of our country,” Fadeev said, originally in Russian. “That says it all.”
Fadeev added that the goals of the delegation led by Putin in Alaska are “dictated exclusively by national interests”.
Ukraine also says it is bound by its constitution not to concede any of its territory to Russia, including Crimea, the strategic Black Sea peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014, several years before its full-scale invasion launched in February 2022.
This is a breaking news story. Updates to follow.
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