US President Donald Trump reportedly pushed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to give up swathes of territory to Russia during a tense meeting on Friday that at times turned into a “shouting match”.
Trump also declined to provide Tomahawk missiles for Ukraine's use, and mused about giving security guarantees to both Kyiv and Moscow, comments that the Ukrainian delegation found confusing, two sources told Reuters.
After his meeting with Mr Zelensky, Trump publicly called for a ceasefire on the current frontlines, a position that the Ukrainian president then embraced in comments to reporters. A third person said Trump came up with that proposal during the meeting after Mr Zelensky said he would not voluntarily cede any territory to Moscow.
"The meeting ended with (Trump's) decision to make a 'deal where we are, on the demarcation line,'" the third source said.
Trump underscored that position in remarks to reporters on Sunday.
"We think that what they should do is just stop at the lines where they are, the battle lines," he said on Air Force One. "The rest is very tough to negotiate if you're going to say, 'you take this, we take that.'"
Asked if he had told Mr Zelensky that Ukraine must cede all of the Donbas region to Russia, Trump said no. "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," Trump said in response to a question from a Reuters reporter.
"You leave it the way it is right now. They can...negotiate something later on down the line," he said.
Overall, while not a disaster for the Ukrainians, the Friday discussion was a clear disappointment for Mr Zelensky, who had hoped to convince Trump to supply his government with long-range Tomahawk missiles capable of hitting deep inside Russia.
Trump has not decided whether to make Tomahawks available, US Vice President JD Vance told a group of reporters on Sunday night.
The Ukrainian president's office did not respond to a request for comment. Elements of the talks were first reported by The Financial Times on Sunday.
The FT reported that Trump was “cursing all the time” during the meeting which often became a “shouting match”.
In recent weeks, there had been indications Trump was deprioritising efforts to force a deal on Kyiv and Moscow, in favour of throwing his full support behind the Ukrainians.
But the Friday meeting indicates that Trump may once again be pushing for a deal as quickly as possible, even if it is on terms that are unpalatable for Kyiv.
US officials repeatedly brought up the possibility of a territorial swap between Ukraine and Russia — an idea that Trump had embraced earlier in the year — and the US president said during the Friday meeting that a quick agreement was essential, the sources said.
"It was pretty bad," one of the sources said of the meeting. "The message was, 'Your country will freeze, and your country will be destroyed'" if Ukraine doesn't make a deal with Russia.
A separate source denied that Trump said Ukraine would be "destroyed."
Both sources said, however, that Trump resorted to swearing several times.
Two sources had the impression that Trump was influenced by last Thursday’s call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. During that call, according to The Washington Post, Putin proposed a territorial swap in which Ukraine would cede the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in return for small parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
One of the sources said that US officials proposed precisely that swap to Mr Zelensky on Friday.
