US President Donald Trump has said he will try to get some territory back for Ukraine during his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.
“Russia’s occupied a big portion of Ukraine. They occupied prime territory. We’re going to try to get some of that territory back for Ukraine,” he told a news conference at the White House.
He and the Russian president are due to hold talks in Alaska at the end of the week. Trump claimed that he could know within two minutes of meeting Putin whether progress was possible.
He said Friday would be a “feel-out meeting” aimed at urging Putin to end the war – suggesting he may view the summit as just an initial encounter.
Trump again warned that there would be “some swapping, changes in land” between Russia and Ukraine.
It is not the first time he has used the phrase “land-swapping”, though it is unclear what land Russia could cede to Ukraine. Kyiv has never laid claim to any Russian territories.
Trump said he will update European leaders if Putin proposes a “fair deal” during the talks, adding that he would speak to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky first “out of respect”.
“I’ll call him first… I’ll call him after, and I may say, ‘lots of luck, keep fighting,’ or I may say, ‘we can make a deal'”, he said.
