Report: Trump Pressed Zelenskyy To Accept Putin’s Terms In Fiery White House Meeting

A fiery exchange erupted at the White House on Friday when President Donald Trump pushed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to agree to Russia’s latest proposal for ending the war, warning that Vladimir Putin had threatened to “destroy” Ukraine if it refused, according to a report by the Financial Times.

Citing multiple sources, the Financial Times said the meeting quickly spiraled into a shouting match, with Trump “cursing all the time.” He reportedly brushed off military maps outlining Ukraine’s battlefronts, demanded that Zelenskyy give up the entire Donbas region, and repeated several of Putin’s arguments from a conversation the two leaders had held the day before.

Zelenskyy’s visit to Washington had been aimed at securing long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles to bolster Ukraine’s defenses, but Trump rejected the request, the report stated. The confrontation resembled a tense February encounter, when Trump and Vice President JD Vance scolded Zelenskyy for what they described as insufficient appreciation toward the United States.

European diplomats who were later briefed on the meeting said Trump echoed Putin’s language, referring to the invasion as a “special operation.” According to the report, Trump told Zelenskyy, “If [Putin] wants it, he will destroy you,” and scoffed at the battlefield maps, remarking, “This red line, I don’t even know where this is. I’ve never been there.”

Putin’s new plan, delivered to Trump the previous day, called for Ukraine to yield portions of the Donbas in return for limited territories in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. This represented a slight modification from the proposal Putin presented during his August meeting with Trump in Alaska, when he demanded full control of Donbas to lock in current front-line positions.

Ukrainian leaders swiftly dismissed the offer. Oleksandr Merezhko, who chairs Ukraine’s parliamentary foreign affairs committee, declared, “To give [the Donbas] to Russia without a fight is unacceptable for Ukrainian society, and Putin knows that.” He added that the entire plan was meant to “cause division within Ukraine and undermine our unity.”

{Matzav.com}