US President Donald Trump urged his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy to cede territory to Russia to end the war, during an angry White House meeting last week.
Before the leaders met Friday, Trump seemed willing to provide long-range missiles to Kyiv, but pivoted following a conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “With a single phone call, Putin appears to have changed President Trump’s mind,” one source told Politico. His meeting with Zelenskyy was “volatile,” the Financial Times reported. Trump apparently repeated Moscow’s talking points, calling the conflict a “special operation,” not a war, and suggested Russia would “destroy” Ukraine. Putin’s demands have scaled back, however: He proposes drawing borders along existing lines in the war, rather than demanding further territory.