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Zelenskyy bashes the idea Ukraine would cede land to Russia — the core of Trump's reported secret plan to end the war
By Brent D. Griffiths,Paul Ronzheimer,
2024-04-09
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed Trump's reported secret plan to end Russia's war.
The Washington Post reported that Trump favored Ukraine ceding territory to Russia to end the war.
Zelenskyy said such a suggestion was "a very primitive idea."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reaffirmed that he wouldn't accept any plan for his nation to cede territory to Russia in a bid to end the war, dismissing an idea that former President Donald Trump is reported to favor.
"If the deal is that we just give up our territories, and that's the idea behind it, then it's a very primitive idea," Zelenskyy said in an interview with Axel Springer media outlets. "I think if he really has a formula and an approach on how to end the war quickly. I need very strong arguments. I don't need a fantastic idea. I need a real idea, because people's lives are at stake."
Zelenskyy has long refused a land swap to end the war, but his renewed opposition has come after The Washington Post reported that Trump privately favored a long-shot deal that would require Ukraine to give control of Crimea and the Donbas border region to Russia.
The former president has publicly boasted that his dealmaking prowess would allow him to broker an end to the war within a day of taking office. If Trump would champion such a plan, it would mark a major departure from President Joe Biden's foreign policy .
In a statement to the Post, Trump's campaign cast doubt on any claims that the former president had formulated a way to end the war.
"Any speculation about President Trump's plan is coming from unnamed and uninformed sources who have no idea what is going on or what will happen," the campaign's spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, said in a statement to the Post. "President Trump is the only one talking about stopping the killing."
Zelenskyy cautioned that in talks about ending the war, Russian President Vladimir Putin couldn't be trusted.
"We are dealing with Putin. Everything he has said so far, he has done differently," Zelenskyy said. "That means we can't trust him. I mean, the idea has to be such that it leaves Putin no room. No room to carry out his plans. Do you understand? He has to be backed into a corner, so to speak, so that he can't improvise. You can agree on all sorts of things. The question is whether he keeps to the agreements."
Zelenskyy said he remained optimistic that the Congress would pass additional assistance, but it remains unclear how Speaker Mike Johnson will move forward. Some Republicans, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, have threatened to oust Johnson if he moves to grant more aid to Ukraine.
Trump has floated the possibility of extending a loan to Ukraine, though in May, he refused to say during a CNN town hall whether he'd want Russia or Ukraine to win the war.
His position has put him in opposition to figures such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who favor a more Reagan-era interventionist foreign policy. McConnell has made fighting for Ukraine aid one of the last major focal points of his decades in Congress.
Zelenskyy told Axel Springer that Trump was interested in the Ukrainian leader's invitation to visit his nation. Biden went in February 2023.
"We said that we would like Donald Trump to come to Ukraine, see everything with his own eyes, and draw his own conclusions," Zelenskyy said. "In any case, I am ready to meet him and discuss the issue. This issue is very important for us."
Ukraine is adapting to the situation at hand soon theywill have Israel Iron Dome aswell as the use of Israeli weapons
Vicente Gilliard
06-12
Why should Ukraine cede any land to the Russians. If that's the Republican plan, I guess they plan on giving up part of America to China's Pla, that they know is crossing the northern and southern border. That way Trump and his daughter can keep their business going in China.
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