Zelenskyy Offers to Trade Land With Putin to End the War
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday he is willing to negotiate a land exchange with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the Russia-Ukraine war.
Land swap: “We will swap one territory for another,” Zelenskyy said in an interview with the Guardian. He explained if United States President Donald Trump helped mediate negotiations, he would be willing to exchange Ukraine-occupied territory in Russia’s Kursk region, though he was not sure what territory Russia would offer in return.
Russian forces gained over 1,300 square miles of Ukrainian territory last year and now occupy about 20 percent of the country. Ukraine on the other hand invaded about 500 square miles of Russia but has since lost about 40 percent of that territory.
U.S. support needed: Zelenskyy warned that Ukraine would not be able to fend off Russia with European aid alone if the U.S. withdrew its military support.
Only [U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems] can defend us against all kinds of missiles, only Patriots. There are other [European] systems … but they cannot provide full protection. … So even from this small example you can see that without America, security guarantees cannot be complete.
—Volodymyr Zelenskyy
President Trump and Vice President JD Vance have both expressed frustration with the amount of U.S. aid going to Ukraine. They want the war to end.
President Trump said he spoke to Putin via phone call this weekend. In an interview with Fox News on Monday, President Trump said, “[Ukraine] may make a deal; they may not make a deal. They may be Russian some day; they may not be Russian some day. But we’re gonna have all this money in there and I said I want it back.”
Vance will meet Zelenskyy at the Munich Security Conference in Germany later this week. At last year’s conference, Vance, then a senator, refused to meet with Zelenskyy, saying he does not “really care what happens to Ukraine, one way or the other.”
Rare earth deal: To gain President Trump’s support, Zelenskyy has offered the U.S. access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals and promises to give U.S. companies reconstruction contracts and investment concessions into Ukrainian infrastructure.
In response, President Trump said, “I told them that I want the equivalent of like $500 billion worth of rare earth [minerals], and they’ve essentially agreed to do that.”
Prince of Russia: For years Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry has warned about Putin’s ambition to retake land from former Soviet states, like Ukraine. Mr. Flurry also warned President Trump “is dangerously naive about Putin.”
In 2023, he wrote:
Mr. Trump believes he could negotiate with Vladimir Putin, giving him sections of Ukraine and expecting this to pacify him. That reveals a total lack of comprehension about who he is dealing with.
To understand why such negotiations are dangerous, request a free copy of Mr. Flurry’s booklet the The Prophesied ‘Prince of Russia.’