How Trump-Zelensky meeting turned acrimonious over demands for territorial concessions
By Kevin Liptak, CNN
(CNN) — President Donald Trump’s working lunch with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday turned acrimonious when the US leader insisted Ukraine make territorial concessions to Russia to end the war, according to European officials briefed on the meeting.
Trump, who would later endorse a freeze in current battle lines as part of a peace settlement, grew frustrated and raised his voice multiple times, the officials said.
The episode was the latest chapter in the fraught relationship between the two men, and amounted to another shift in Trump’s approach to how the war will be settled. Last month, after meeting Zelensky in New York, Trump claimed Ukraine might be able to regain all its territory lost to Russia. But now Trump is preparing for another high-stakes meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, this time in Budapest.
It was after a call with the Russian leader on the eve of the Zelensky meeting that Trump again insisted Kyiv must give up swaths of land for the conflict to end.
Zelensky emerged from that meeting to brief European leaders on a call in which he sounded pessimistic about Trump’s position, the European officials said.
A Ukrainian source separately called the White House meeting “tense,” but said there was “no shouting,” downplaying reports of a volatile encounter between the two leaders. Overall, the source called the meeting constructive, since Trump ultimately declared that a ceasefire be along the current frontline. Zelensky later endorsed the idea in remarks to reporters.
Asked about the European characterization of the meeting, the White House pointed to Trump’s Air Force One comments on Sunday. “We think that what they should do is just stop at the lines where they are, the battle lines,” he said. “The rest is very tough to negotiate if you’re going to say, ‘You take this, we take that.’”
For Trump, ending the Russia-Ukraine war is now a top priority after he brokered a truce between Israel and Hamas to end the conflict in Gaza. He emphasized the need to end the war quickly in Friday’s talks, the European officials said.
In his phone call with Trump a day earlier, Putin proposed a plan where Ukraine would surrender the eastern Donbas region in exchange for some Russian-held parts of the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, the European official said.
The proposal, which the officials characterized as a slightly less sweeping demand than what Putin raised during his August summit with Trump in Alaska, would still amount to a major loss of territory for Ukraine.
Trump later arrived at the position of ending the war along the current battle lines.
Trump on Sunday denied he’d asked Zelensky to concede the entire Donbas region, which Ukraine views as strategically important.
“It’s cut up right now, I think 78% of the land is already taken by Russia,” he said on Air Force One. “They should stop right now at the battle lines. … Go home, stop killing people and be done.”
Several people familiar had previously told CNN that last week’s Trump-Zelensky meeting was tense, frank and, at times, “uncomfortable” with the two leaders split over the future of the war.
Trump made clear to Zelensky in a “direct and honest” conversation that — for now — the Ukrainian leader would not receive the long-range missiles that can reach far into Russia that he was seeking. One US official said Trump was under the impression that Ukraine is seeking to escalate and prolong the conflict and is worried about potential losses during an upcoming harsh winter.
According to the European officials, Zelensky and his delegation came to the White House with maps showing current battle lines, hoping to convince the US president to maintain and expand American support. Trump seemed uninterested in the arguments, and forcefully insisted Ukraine agree to land concessions for the war to end, they said.
In an interview taped last week, Trump said for the war to end, Putin was “going to take something, he’s won certain property.”
Trump has told those around him that his demand for a ceasefire along current battle lines was due to the “realities of where the conflict stands,” arguing there was too much devastation and too much killing, according to one US official.
“Both sides need to make a deal,” another US official said arguing the conditions are only going to get worse.
Zelensky cast the meeting as a “pointed conversation” in a post to social media but said its outcome “can really help bring this war closer to an end.”
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, Kristen Holmes and Victoria Butenko contributed to this report.
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