The latest round of talks in Washington, DC, between US President Donald Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and seven European leaders ended with cautious optimism but also heightened concern over the future of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Trump’s public remarks strongly indicated an alignment with Russia’s negotiating position, particularly on the question of Ukraine’s occupied territories. In one of his most pointed comments, he told Zelenskyy that he “can end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight,” a statement that many observers interpreted as pressuring Ukraine to concede territory in exchange for peace.
This comes on the heels of Trump’s recent Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, where reports suggest Moscow offered only modest territorial concessions. Russia would return relatively small areas in the northern Sumy and northeastern Kharkiv regions, which together account for about 440 square km, while demanding that Kyiv cede large parts of Donetsk and Luhansk in the east—territories that Russia has yet to fully capture but continues to claim. Alongside this, Moscow insists on formal international recognition of Crimea, annexed in 2014, as Russian territory. Such terms would essentially consolidate Russia’s hold over nearly one-fifth of Ukraine, or roughly 114,500 square km, including the majority of the Donbas region and large tracts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in the south.
Ukraine has consistently rejected any suggestion of surrendering land, maintaining its position that all territories within its 1991 borders must be restored. At present, Russia controls about 88 per cent of Donbas, including nearly all of Luhansk and three-quarters of Donetsk, leaving Ukraine with around 6,600 square km in the region. In Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, Russia holds about 74 per cent of the territory, with Ukraine retaining about 14,500 square km. Despite Russia’s battlefield dominance in these regions, Ukrainian forces continue to hold key strongholds, particularly in Donetsk, where Moscow is pressing hard to capture the last major cities under Ukrainian control.
The White House meeting nonetheless produced one notable development: Trump signaled for the first time that the US might support a security framework for Ukraine, potentially in the form of a “NATO-like” guarantee. French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed after the talks that Washington had agreed to begin working with European allies on a mechanism to deter future Russian aggression. While details remain vague, this marks a shift in the US position, which until now had deferred the question of guarantees to Europe alone.
The Washington discussions thus underscored the fragile balance between immediate peace prospects and long-term security concerns. For Ukraine, the prospect of ceding land in exchange for a ceasefire poses an existential dilemma, while for Trump, the focus appears to be on a swift resolution that reduces US entanglement. Europe, meanwhile, finds itself caught between supporting Kyiv’s territorial integrity and working with Washington on a broader security arrangement. The talks may have opened a new chapter in the diplomacy of the conflict, but they also exposed the deep divisions over what a “peace” in Ukraine would look like—and at what cost.
