Trump urged Zelenskiy to cut a deal with Putin or risk facing destruction, FT reports

WASHINGTON: U.S. President Donald Trump urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to accept Russia's terms for ending the war between Russia and Ukraine in a White House meeting on Friday, warning that President Vladimir Putin threatened to "destroy" Ukraine if it didn't comply, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

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Trump proposed a ceasefire along current frontlines, suggesting Ukraine negotiate later and avoid further conflict.
He declined to commit Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, and floated security guarantees for both Kyiv and Moscow, confusing Ukrainian officials.
US officials discussed a territorial swap, reportedly influenced by a call with Putin, prompting concern and disappointment from Zelenskiy's delegation.

During the meeting, Trump insisted Zelenskiy surrender the entire eastern Donbas region to Russia, repeatedly echoing talking points the Russian president had made in their call a day earlier, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter.

Ukraine ultimately managed to swing Trump back to endorsing a freeze of the current front lines, the FT said. Trump said after the meeting that the two sides should stop the war at the battle line; Zelenskiy said that was an important point.

The White House did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the FT report.

Zelenskiy arrived at the White House on Friday looking for weapons to keep fighting his country's war, but met an American president who appeared more intent on brokering a peace deal.

In Thursday's call with Trump, Putin had offered some small areas of the two southern frontline regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in exchange for the much larger parts of the Donbas now under Ukrainian control, the FT report added.

That is less than his original 2024 demand for Kyiv to cede the entirety of Donbas plus Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south, an area of nearly 20,000 square km.

Zelenskiy's spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside business hours on whether Trump had pressured Zelenskiy to accept peace on Russia's terms.

Trump and Putin agreed on Thursday to hold a second summit on the war in Ukraine within the next two weeks, provisionally in Budapest, following an August 15 meeting in Alaska that failed to produce a breakthrough.