Photo by: Presidential Office of Ukraine/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
donald trump and Volodymyr Zelensky They were relatively cordial at a lunch in front of reporters on Friday, but the goodwill reportedly turned into a “shouting fight” when the two leaders disappeared behind closed doors.
financial time reported on Sunday that Trump warned the Ukrainian president to accept Russia’s terms to end the war so that the Russian leader would not Vladimir Putin “destroy” Ukraine.
“The meeting between the presidents of the United States and Ukraine descended many times into a ‘shouting match,’ with Trump ‘cursing the entire time,’ people familiar with the matter said,” according to the report.
Trump, furthermore, reportedly insisted that Zelensky hand over the entire Donbass region to Russia, a point pushed by Putin during a call to the White House the day before. Putin reportedly told Trump on Thursday that he would give up “some small areas of the two southern front regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia” in return.
“During Friday’s meeting, Trump appeared to have literally adopted many of Putin’s talking points, even as they contradicted his own recent statements about Russia’s weaknesses, European officials briefed on the meeting said,” the report said, and continued:
According to a European official with knowledge of the meeting, Trump told Zelenskyy that Putin had told him the conflict was a “special operation, not even a war,” adding that the Ukrainian leader needed to reach a deal or face destruction.
The official said Trump told Zelenskyy he was losing the war and warned him: “If (Putin) wants it, he will destroy you.”
At one point during the meeting, the US president tossed aside maps of the Ukrainian battlefield, the official familiar with the meeting said. According to the official, Trump said he was “fed up” with seeing the map of the Ukrainian front line over and over again.
Zelensky said in a statement Sunday that “decisive measures are needed by the United States, Europe, the G20 and G7 countries” to end the war.
Trump told Fox News Maria Bartiromo on Sunday that Putin “was going to take something” from Ukraine. “I mean, they fought; he has a lot of property… he’s gained certain properties.”
Trump would not commit to sending Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine as Zelensky requested, he told Bartiromo, because “we need them for ourselves too.”
Read financial time article here.
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