For President Trump, the map of Ukraine on an easel in the Oval Office had an obvious message. Russia has taken a big chunk of territory in an eastern region known as the Donbas. That territory, shaded in red, was gone. Ukraine needed to make a deal to get peace, or it risked losing more.
For President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, the map, displayed at a meeting on Monday with the two presidents and European leaders, presented a far more complicated picture. This was not a business deal or a poker game. This was personal.
Away from the cameras, he told Mr. Trump that his grandfather had fought in World War II to free the cities of the Donbas from the Nazis. He could not just give it up.
On Wednesday, hours after he returned to Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, Mr. Zelensky reiterated the point.
“There were many such families” who fought to free the Donbas, Mr. Zelensky told reporters. “Many fell and many were wounded. And I explained that this is a particularly painful moment in our history and a particularly painful part of life in Ukraine. It is not as simple as it may appear to some.”
It is not clear where exactly the recent flurry of diplomacy spearheaded by Mr. Trump to end the deadliest war in Europe since World War II will lead. But the Donbas — a mineral-rich territory that consists mainly of two regions, Donetsk and Luhansk — will be at the center of any negotiations.
Almost the size of West Virginia, the Donbas is where much of this war has been fought. Tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides have died there for the smallest of gains. Russia is now trying to seize the last 2,500 square miles of the Donbas still under Ukrainian control.
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