WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said he would meet with President Vladimir Putin of Russia next Friday in Alaska as he tries to secure a deal to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Trump announced the meeting Friday shortly after he suggested that a peace deal between the two countries would include “some swapping of territories,” signaling that the United States may join Russia in trying to compel Ukraine to permanently cede some of its land.
“We’re going to get some back, and we’re going to get some switched,” Trump said while hosting the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan for a peace summit at the White House. “There’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both, but we’ll be talking about that either later or tomorrow.”
Trump provided little additional detail about what territory could be swapped or about the broader contours of a peace deal, saying he did not want to overshadow the peace pledge between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Ukrainian leaders have been adamantly opposed to relinquishing any of their land to Russia, and the country’s constitution bars President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine from ceding any territory. There would also be numerous political and military hurdles for Ukraine in turning over land to Russia.
Trump told European leaders earlier this week that he planned to follow up his session with Putin with a meeting between himself, Putin and Zelenskyy.
Beyond the question of territory, there are a number of equally thorny issues that would need to be settled. Among them is whether Zelenskyy would get security guarantees from Europe, the United States or NATO to keep Russia from pausing, then resuming, a war to try to take the rest of the country.
In the past, Putin has also demanded sharp limits on the number and quality of arms that the West could provide to Ukraine, and he has argued for a variety of steps that could change the government, including elections, which he would presumably attempt to influence by seeking to place a more pro-Russia leader.
Russian officials have demanded that Ukraine cede the four regions that Moscow claimed to have “annexed” from Ukraine in late 2022, even as some of that land remains under Ukrainian control.
Trump has grown increasingly frustrated with his inability to end a conflict that, as a candidate for president, he promised he would settle in 24 hours. And since taking office, he has oscillated in his approach to Russia. Earlier in his term, he showed considerable deference to Putin, to the point of joining North Korea in opposing a United Nations resolution condemning Russia for its 2022 invasion.
He also berated Zelenskyy in the Oval Office earlier this year for not showing enough gratitude to the United States for its military support, telling the Ukrainian leader that he didn’t “have the cards” to negotiate a peace deal. But more recently, he has criticized Putin for not accepting the terms of a proposed ceasefire and for prolonging the conflict.
Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, met with Putin in Moscow on Wednesday, a session Trump said was “highly productive.” But shortly after the meeting, Trump announced he would increase tariffs on India to 50% as a penalty for purchasing Russian oil.
Friday also marked the deadline for Russia to agree to a ceasefire before Trump imposed additional sanctions on its oil exports, though it remained unclear if Trump would follow through on that threat after confirming his meeting with Putin.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
