Trump says he agreed with Putin on a territory swap: Zelenskyy must accept it

US President Donald Trump has announced that he has reached an agreement in principle with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin for a "territory swap" between Ukraine and Russia and he sees a chance that Ukraine may reject such a deal.

Source: European Pravda citing Trump in an interview with Fox News

Details: The interview with host Sean Hannity took place in the meeting room where Trump had just met Putin, immediately after the press conference at which Trump and Putin refused to answer journalists' questions. Instead, the US president chose to speak with a TV presenter loyal to him.

Trump repeatedly stressed in the interview that the key issue now is for Ukraine to accept the arrangements he reached with Putin.

Quote from Trump: "Ukraine has to agree. President Zelenskyy has to agree. 

Now it's really up to President Zelenskyy to get it [peace deal] done, and I would also say the European nations, they have to get involved a little bit. But it's up to President Zelenskyy. And if they'd like, I'll be at that next meeting."

Details: Trump himself avoided naming the elements of the deal that might cause problems for Ukraine’s approval, but the presenter asked whether his understanding of the sticking point was accurate. 

Quote from Hannity: "There’s going to be some land swaps, there will be more Russian territory than there had been, and what Ukraine needs desperately are security measures that won’t be NATO-related." 

Hannity asked Trump to confirm if this was correct and Donald Trump replied in the affirmative.

Quote from Trump: "Those are points that we negotiated and those are points that we largely have agreed on, actually. [..] We’re pretty close to a deal. Now look, Ukraine has to agree to it, maybe they’ll say ‘no’."

The US president rated the chances of concluding a deal as fifty–fifty and separately explained what message he intends to convey to Zelenskyy when he speaks with him. Trump said that he would tell Ukraine’s president to "make a deal", that a deal had to be made and that Russia was a "very big power", whereas Ukraine was not, even though the Ukrainians had very good soldiers and good weapons provided by the United States.

The interview did not contain any detail on the scale or outline of the proposed "territory swap". Zelenskyy has previously stressed that the issue of territory was defined in Ukraine’s constitution.

Background: 

• As European Pravda reported, there have been sceptical assessments of the talks in Europe. German diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger said Putin had come out on top in the talks with Trump. The Czech foreign minister reminded Trump of the 1938 Munich Agreement at the beginning of his meeting with Putin.
• Meanwhile, Trump said he was not heading to Alaska to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine.

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