US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the Donbas region in Ukraine should be “cut up,” with most of it left under Russian control, as a way to end a war that has lasted for almost four years. Trump made the remark while on Air Force One. “Let it be cut the way it is.. It’s cut up right now,” he said, adding that it could be “left the way it is right now.” He suggested that “they can negotiate something later on down the line,” but for now, both sides should “stop at the battle line – go home, stop fighting, stop killing people.”
Trump’s comments came shortly after reports that Ukrainian drones had attacked a major gas processing plant in southern Russia. The strike caused a fire and forced the plant to stop taking in gas from Kazakhstan, according to Russian and Kazakh officials on Sunday.
Trump urges Zelenskyy to surrender Donetsk
Trump has again hinted that Ukraine might need to give up some of the land it lost to Russia in order to end the ongoing war. His comments mark a shift toward encouraging Ukraine to compromise for peace.
In an interview with Fox News recently, Trump was asked whether Russian President Vladimir Putin would agree to end the war without taking more Ukrainian territory. Trump replied that Putin would likely still keep some of the land, noting that Russia had already gained control of certain areas during the conflict. He added that other nations, unlike the US, often hold on to the territories they win in wars. The interview, which aired Sunday on Fox News, took place before Trump’s separate talks with Putin on Thursday and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday.
Later, on Sunday evening, while flying from Florida to Washington, Trump repeated his position that the fighting should stop along the current front lines. He said that future negotiations could be complicated if both sides insist on reclaiming or redrawing territory, adding that there were many possible outcomes to consider.
Putin’s influence and the ‘swap’ proposal
Officials familiar with the talks said the US side repeatedly pressed for a “territorial swap,” an idea Trump has privately supported for months. The meeting, they said, was not confrontational but had a clear message that Ukraine should quickly decide to reach a settlement. “It was pretty bad,” one person briefed on the exchange said. “The message was basically that Ukraine would freeze and be destroyed if it didn’t make a deal.” Another source said Trump seemed visibly impatient during parts of the meeting and used “strong language” several times.
According to the reports, the tone of the meeting may have been influenced by Trump’s phone call a day earlier with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Washington Post reported that Putin demanded Ukraine cede the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk to Moscow in exchange for smaller parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. “That would be suicide,” one Ukrainian official said.
Before meeting Zelenskiy, Trump told reporters he plans to meet Putin soon in Budapest. Kremlin officials later confirmed that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will hold talks in the coming days.
