Trump pressures Zelensky to make concessions to Russia or face destruction

In a tense back-and-forth during their Friday meeting, US President Donald Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to accept Putin’s terms for ending the war, warning that Russia would “destroy” Ukraine otherwise, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Sunday. 

On 17 October, the leaders met to discuss US aid to Ukraine and a proposal for long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, which ended with Zelensky leaving Washington empty-handed after a session the FT described as echoing their tense February exchange. 

The outcomes of the meeting may have been influenced by a phone call between Trump and Putin the day before, in which Putin reportedly said he was willing to surrender parts of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions in southeastern Ukraine, which have been partially occupied by Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, in exchange for the entirety of the Donetsk region.

Following the call with Putin, Trump conducted the talks with Zelensky with a markedly more restrained tone on Russia, the FT wrote, even endorsing the resilience of its economy and contradicting his administration’s recent threats of sanctions and “collapse” of the Russian economy. According to FT’s sources, Trump tossed aside maps depicting the Ukrainian front line, called for Zelensky to surrender the entire Donbas, and repeated talking points from his call with Putin the day before. 

Zelensky told reporters on Monday that if Ukraine accepts such concessions, “they will try to solve everything else without us”. This latest development comes after the announcement of a Putin-Trump summit in Budapest in the coming weeks, which Zelensky has confirmed he would be ready to join if invited.