Trump Zelensky Putin

US President Donald Trump on Friday urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to accept Russia’s terms for ending the Russia-Ukraine war during a meeting at the White House on Friday, warning that President Vladimir Putin was threatening to “destroy” Ukraine if it did not comply, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

During the meeting, Trump insisted that Zelensky cede the entire eastern Donbas region to Russia, repeatedly repeating talking points the Russian president had made during their call the day before, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter.

Ukraine ultimately managed to bring Trump back to support for freezing the current front lines, the FT reported. Trump said after the meeting that both sides should stop the war on the battle line; Zelenskyy said this was an important point.

The White House did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the FT report.

Zelensky arrived at the White House on Friday in search of weapons to continue waging war at home, but he met with a U.S. president who seemed more committed to brokering a peace deal.

During Thursday’s call with Trump, Putin had offered some small areas of the two southern frontline regions, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, in exchange for much larger parts of Donbass now under Ukrainian control, the FT report added.

This is less than its initial 2024 demand for kyiv to cede all of Donbass as well as Kherson and Zaporizhzhia to the south, an area of ​​almost 20,000 square kilometers.

Zelensky’s spokesman did not immediately respond to an after-hours request for comment on whether Trump pressured Zelensky to accept peace on Russia’s terms.

Trump and Putin agreed Thursday to hold a second summit on the Ukraine war in the next two weeks, tentatively in Budapest, after an Aug. 15 meeting in Alaska that failed to produce a breakthrough.

Read the full Financial Times report here.