Ukraine and its supporters in Europe insist that the United States and Russia cannot decide on land swaps behind their backs at this week's summit. However, European officials concede that Moscow is unlikely to relinquish control of the Ukrainian territories it currently holds.
Ahead of the summit in Alaska on Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump suggested that a peace deal could include “some swapping of territories,” but the Europeans see no sign that Russia will offer anything to swap. Europeans and Ukrainians so far are not invited to the summit, News.Az reports citing foreign media.
European Union foreign ministers are meeting on Monday following talks on Ukraine among U.S. and European security advisers over the weekend. They are wary that
President Vladimir Putin will try to claim a political victory by portraying Ukraine as inflexible.
Concerns have mounted in Europe and Ukraine that Kyiv may be pressed to give up land or accept other curbs on its sovereignty. Ukraine and its European allies reject the notion that Putin should lay claim to any territory even before agreeing to a ceasefire.
“As we work towards a sustainable and just peace, international law is clear: All temporarily occupied territories belong to Ukraine,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said ahead of the ministerial meeting.
“A sustainable peace also means that aggression cannot be rewarded,” Kallas said.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said “it must be obvious to Poland and our European partners — and I hope to all of NATO — that state borders cannot be changed by force.” Any land swaps or peace terms “must be agreed upon with Ukraine’s participation,” he said, according to Polish news agency PAP.
On Sunday, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Germany would not accept that territorial issues be discussed or decided by Russia and the United States “over the heads” of Europeans or Ukrainians.
Still, it’s hard to ignore the reality on the ground.
Russia in 2022 illegally annexed the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in Ukraine’s east, and Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south, even though it doesn’t fully control them. It also occupies the Crimean Peninsula , which it seized in 2014.
On the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, Russia’s bigger army has made slow but costly progress with its summer offensive. The relentless pounding of urban areas has killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to U.N. estimates.
“In the end, the issue of the fact that the Russians are controlling at this moment, factually, a part of Ukraine has to be on the table” in any peace talks after the Alaska summit, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on CBS on Sunday.
Rutte said Ukraine’s Western backers “can never accept that in a legal sense,” but he suggested that they might tacitly acknowledge Russian control.
News.Az
