Zelenskyy rejects ceding Donbas to Russia, seeks role in US-Russia talks

By Daryna Krasnolutska and Olesia Safronova

 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he won’t cede the eastern region of Donbas to Russia and pushed for Kyiv to be included in talks as the US and Russian leaders prepare to meet on Friday. 

Vladimir Putin is demanding that Ukraine give up the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that together form Donbas as a condition to unlock a ceasefire and enter negotiations over a longer-term peace accord. 

 

But such a decision would require Zelenskyy to order troops to withdraw from 9,000 square kilometers (3,474 square miles) of Ukrainian territory, handing Moscow a victory that its army couldn’t achieve militarily for more than a decade.  

 

  “For Russians, Donbas is a bridgehead for a future new offensive,” Zelenskyy told reporters on Tuesday in Kyiv. “Any of territorial issues cannot be separated from security guarantees.” 

 

Zelenskyy will be in Berlin on Wednesday to meet German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, his spokesman said. Together with several European leaders and Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte they will hold a call with US President Donald Trump ahead of the summit with Putin. Zelenskyy wasn’t invited to the meeting in Alaska.

 

European Union leaders said this week that any peace agreement must “respect international law, including the principles of independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity,” adding that international borders must not be changed by force.

 

Europe should be also part of the talks as Ukraine wants to join the EU, Zelenskyy said on Tuesday.

 

US and Russian officials were working toward an agreement on Ukrainian territories for the summit in Alaska, Bloomberg News reported last week, citing people familiar with the matter. Ukraine and its European allies have been pushing for a halt to the fighting and freezing the current frontline as a first step before talks on a more enduring settlement.

 

“I don’t know what will be discussed without us, they have probably a bilateral track,” said Zelenskyy. “The Ukrainian issue must be discussed by three sides at least.” 

 

Trump on Monday downplayed expectations for his meeting with Putin, casting it as a “feel-out meeting” and saying he would confer with Ukrainian and European leaders after the sitdown. The US president, who pledged to end the war quickly after taking the office, said he expected to either outline to them the contours of a deal that included land swaps negotiated with Putin, or that he did not believe a peace deal could be brokered. 

Demanding Concessions

Russia has stepped up its air strikes on Ukraine in recent months and its army is advancing in Ukraine’s eastern regions in a slow grinding war. Zelenskyy said Moscow wants to create a narrative that “Russia’s advancing and Ukraine’s losing” ahead of the Alaska summit.  

“In this month, they will try to demonstrate advances in all directions to politically press Ukraine, demanding concessions,” Zelenskyy said. “We understand this and our army is preparing for this.”

 

The Ukrainian president said Russia is gearing up for a new military offensive after Aug. 15 by relocating around 30,000 troops to Ukraine’s southern region of Zaporizhzhia and the Donetsk region from Ukraine’s northern Sumy region. 

 

“We think they will be ready with those brigades before September,” Zelenskyy said, adding that additional Russian troops may be ready in November.  

  Ukraine still is outnumbered by Russian artillery at a ratio of 1:2.4, he said. But it has the advantage of First-Person View (FPV) drones, which allow pilots to monitor the battlefield in real time, at a ratio of 2.4:1 that can increase to 2.5:1 if allies help finance production, the president added.  

 

Kyiv has also agreed with the US to purchase American weapons worth $1 billion to $1.5 billion a month. 

 

“Tomorrow, we will speak with the Europeans and the US side,” Zelenskyy said. “I will deliver a message that all sensitive issues about Ukraine must be discussed in the presence of Ukraine.”