Global Media Reacts to Leaked Details from Alaska Summit

Details of post-summit call were leaked in which US president supports plan for Kyiv to give up Donbas region.

According to Rokna, citing The Guardian Donald Trump will back a plan to cede unoccupied Ukrainian territory to Russia to secure an end to the war between the two countries, it was reported on Saturday, after details of his post-summit call with European leaders leaked out.

Trump told European leaders that he believed a peace deal could be negotiated if the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, agreed to give up the Donbas region, which Russian invaders have not been able to seize in over three years of fighting, the New York Times reported, citing to two senior European officials.

Two sources with direct knowledge of the talks in Alaska told the Guardian that Putin demanded Ukraine withdraw from Donbas, which is made up of the Donestk and Luhansk regions, as a condition for ending the war, but offered Trump a freeze along the remaining frontline.

Although Luhansk is almost entirely under Russian control, Ukraine still holds key parts of Donetsk, including the cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk and heavily fortified positions whose defence has cost tens of thousands of lives.

Putin told Trump that in exchange for Donetsk and Luhansk, he would halt further advances and freeze the frontline in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, where Russian forces occupy significant areas.

Trump’s support for ceding Ukraine’s Donbas region, which is rich in mineral resources, including coal and iron ore, to Russia comes as he voiced support for moving straight to a peace deal and not via a ceasefire, which, Trump said in a social media post on Saturday, “often times do not hold up.”

US support for ceding the Donbas to Russia represents a breach with Ukraine and European allies that oppose such a deal.

As part of a deal, the US is ready to be part of security guarantees for Ukraine, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said on Saturday. Trump has threatened economic penalties on countries that buy Russian oil if Moscow refuses a deal and flew US bombers over the Russian leader as he arrived in Alaska.

But Ukrainian and European leaders fear that a straight-to-peace deal, skipping over a preliminary ceasefire, gives Moscow an upper hand in talks. Zelensky is expected in Washington on Monday to meet with Trump. Europeans were invited to join the Ukrainian leader at the White House, officials told the New York Times.

Trump claimed on Saturday in his post that “it was determined by all” that it was better to go directly to negotiated a peace agreement, though European leaders indicated this was not their view.

A joint statement issued by European leaders said they were “ready to work with US President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy towards a trilateral summit with European support” but “it will be up to Ukraine to make decisions on its territory. International borders must not be changed by force.”

The statement was signed by the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen; the French president, Emmanuel Macron; the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni; the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz; the British prime minister, Keir Starmer; the Finnish president, Alexander Stubb; the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk; and the European Council president, António Costa.

They said they “welcomed President Trump’s efforts to stop the killing in Ukraine, end Russia’s war of aggression, and achieve just and lasting peace”.

Zelensky said in a statement after his conversations with Trump and the European leaders: “The positions are clear. A real peace must be achieved, one that will be lasting, not just another pause between Russian invasions. Killings must stop as soon as possible, the fire must cease both on the battlefield and in the sky, as well as against our port infrastructure. All Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians must be released, and the children abducted by Russia must be returned.”

In a later statement on social media on Saturday he added that the move to go directly to a peace agreement without a ceasefire first “complicates the situation”.

If Moscow lacks “the will to carry out a simple order to stop the strikes, it may take a lot of effort to get Russia to have the will to implement far greater – peaceful coexistence with its neighbors for decades,” he said.

European leaders, including Macron, Merz and Starmer, are set to discuss the issues with Zelenskyy on Sunday via video call ahead of his meeting with Trump, the French president’s office said in a statement.