Zelensky rejects territory losses ahead of Trump-Putin summit

Kiev [Ukraine], August 10: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday once again rejected making territorial concessions to end the war with Russia, pointing to the country's constitution.
"Ukrainians will not gift their land to the occupier," Zelensky said in a video broadcast from the presidential office.
"The answer to the Ukrainian territorial question is already in the Constitution of Ukraine. No one will deviate from this," he emphasized.
"Ukraine is ready for real decisions that can bring peace. Any decisions that are against us, any decisions that are without Ukraine, are at the same time decisions against peace," Zelensky said.
He described media reports of ceasefire plans between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump involving territorial concessions as "stillborn decisions" and said they were unworkable.
According to the reports, Putin has demanded full Russian control over the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, which Zelensky said would mean the surrender of thousands of square kilometres and strategically important cities.
In Washington, Trump spoke of "swapping" territory in a "very complicated" deal. He did not provide further details. The US president plans to meet Putin for talks in Alaska on Friday.
Zelensky noted that this was very far away from the war raging in his country, stressing that the conflict could not be ended without the Ukrainians.
Ukraine has been warding off a full-scale Russian invasion since February 2022.
Trump has said that he will meet with Putin in Alaska on August 15.
"The highly anticipated meeting between myself, as President of the United States of America, and President Vladimir Putin, of Russia, will take place next Friday, August 15, 2025, in the Great State of Alaska. Further details to follow," Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.
Putin on Thursday had confirmed the planned meeting with Trump on the Ukraine war, suggesting the United Arab Emirates as a possible venue for the summit.
Russia has been waging a destructive war against Ukraine for more than three years. Trump had repeatedly stated his desire to end the war quickly.
The summit will be the first between a sitting US president and Putin since 2021, when Joe Biden met Putin in Geneva.
Earlier on Friday, Trump said Ukraine and Russia would likely be "swapping" portions of territory as part of a deal to end the war, calling the plans "very complicated."
Trump has said he plans to first meet Putin and then expand the talks into a trilateral meeting with Zelensky. However, the Kremlin has been reserved about a meeting between Putin and Zelensky.
On Thursday, Putin said he considers a meeting with Zelensky as possible, but the conditions for such negotiations must be right, and the prerequisites for this are still far from being met.
Putin did not list his conditions, but previously the Kremlin had insisted that Ukraine give up the territories Russia occupies, including Crimea which it illegally annexed in 2014, that western nations stop supplying Ukraine with weapons and that they exclude Ukraine from NATO membership.
Zelensky and his European allies have rejected those demands.
Source: Qatar Tribune