Tomás Ó Flatharta

Reject Trump-Putin Partition of Ukraine Plan

Ukraine must determine its own future. Surrender to Trump-Putin will create a carnival of reaction in the heart of Europe. Been there, done that: Collins-Griffith 1922 Irish surrender to British Empire.

A useful article on the Trump-Putin Partition of Ukraine Plan is below.

Financial Times Saturday August 9 2025

 Christopher Miller in New York and Fabrice Deprez in Kyiv

Zelenskyy looks to European allies to stop handover of territory to Russia

Donald Trump said a peace deal with Russia could involve ‘some swapping’ of Ukrainian land

Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukrainians ‘will not gift their land to the occupier’ 

Zelenskyy looks to European allies to stop handover of territory 

Volodymyr Zelenskyy is trying to shore up European opposition to any loss of Ukrainian land to Russia after Donald Trump said that a peace deal might involve “some swapping of territory”.

People close to the Ukrainian president told the Financial Times that he was alarmed by Trump’s decision to hold a face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska next week without inviting Ukraine to participate.

The prospect of Trump and Putin discussing the war behind closed doors, without Ukrainian representation, has raised deep concerns in Kyiv that the future of Ukraine could be negotiated over its head.

On Saturday Zelenskyy was attempting to build a unified position with European leaders to firm up international opposition to any backroom deal that could compromise Ukraine’s territorial integrity, according to senior officials close to the president.

His efforts come as officials from the US, Europe and Ukraine prepare to meet in the UK on Saturday.

Zelenskyy has dispatched Andriy Yermak, his chief of staff, and Rustem Umerov, Ukraine’s secretary of the National Security and Defence Council, to the talks, which US Vice-President JD Vance will attend.

Umerov has led Kyiv’s delegation in each of the three rounds of peace talks with Russia in Istanbul since March.

Zelenskyy and his advisers are trying to persuade Trump and his team to adopt what one official called a more “rational” approach to Putin’s maximalist demands.

There is particular anxiety that Trump could seek a quick resolution to the war by offering Putin territorial concessions, legitimising its illegal annexation of Crimea and occupation of huge parts of four mainland regions of Ukraine: Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

On Saturday Ukrainian officials were adamant that the US president did not have the legal or political power to order Ukraine to hand over land. Even if Trump wanted to cut a deal, “nobody here in Ukraine has a legal way to give up territories”, an the official added.

In an address the nation on Saturday morning, Zelenskyy rejected Trump’s suggestion that a peace deal with Russia could involve “some swapping of territories”, insisting that Ukrainians “will not gift their land to the occupier”.

“The answer to the Ukrainian territorial question is already in the constitution in Ukraine,” he said. “No one will deviate from this — and no one will be able to.”

Trump announced on Friday that he would meet Putin in Alaska on August 15, adding that a peace deal would probably involve Kyiv ceding territory.

“It’s very complicated. We’re going to get some back, we’re going to get some switched. There will be some swapping of territories, to the betterment of both,” Trump said.

That idea was dismissed in Kyiv.

“Ukraine will not accept any agreement made without it, especially one that legitimises Russia’s occupation of its sovereign territory,” said another Ukrainian official.

Any such deal would have to be ratified by parliament, officials in Kyiv said. Numerous Ukrainian MPs including many from Zelenskyy’s ruling party have told the Financial Times that they would not vote on legislation that would see parts of Ukraine handed over to Russia as part of a deal to end the war. 

Ahead of Saturday’s summit, which will be hosted by UK foreign secretary David Lammy at his country residence outside London, Zelenskyy held calls with several European leaders.

Downing Street said UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Zelenskyy “agreed that we must keep up the pressure on Putin to end his illegal war”.

Zelenskyy said of his call with Starmer that “we share the same view on the need for a truly lasting peace for Ukraine and on the danger of Russia’s plan to reduce everything to discussing the impossible”.

Following a call with the Prime Minister of Denmark Mette Frederiksen, Zelenskyy said: “We see no changes in Russia’s position — the Russians still refuse to stop the killings, still invest in the war and still push the idea of ‘exchanging’ Ukrainian territory for Ukrainian territory, with consequences that guarantee nothing except more favourable positions for Russia to resume the war.”

At the summit, European capitals will seek to clarify “how determined” the US administration is in sealing a deal with Putin and whether it is conscious of the implications of any territorial concessions to Russia, one European government official told the FT.

Conflicting scenarios have been set out by different parts of the Trump administration, with differences between what secretary of state Marco Rubio, US special Envoy Steve Witkoff and even Trump himself had conveyed, the person said.

Senior Ukrainian officials told the FT that the Russian proposal included a freezing of the frontline in south-eastern Ukraine if Kyiv agreed to pull back from parts of the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions that it still controlled.

Moscow has previously laid claim to the entire Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions despite the two regional capitals remaining under Ukrainian control.

Swaths of land controlled by Russian forces in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions as well as small areas in the Sumy and Kharkiv regions may be up for discussion, the officials said.

Leaders in the Baltic states criticised any push to force Ukraine into ceding territory amid worries that the region could be a target for Putin. 

“If borders can be changed by force, none are safe . . . Sovereignty and territorial integrity are the cornerstones of global stability. We will not reward aggression — not in Ukraine, not anywhere,” Margus Tsahkna, Estonia’s foreign minister, said. 

Baiba Braže, Latvia’s foreign minister, said: “Just, lasting, dignified peace is what we all want, Ukrainians the most. Such peace must involve Ukraine and uphold its sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Ukraine has spent the past few years fortifying big cities in the Donetsk region that Moscow is reportedly demanding Kyiv give up. More than 120,000 people still live in Kramatorsk and Slovyansk, the two main cities in the Ukrainian-controlled part of Donetsk. “If Ukraine cedes territory without concessions or enforceable guarantees, Russia would then seize fortified defensive lines at no cost,” a former Ukrainian officer who runs analytical group Frontelligence Insight wrote on X. “From that position Moscow will renew hostilities with impunity.” 

 Additional reporting by Richard Milne in Oslo, Anne-Sylvaine Chassany in Berlin, Anna Gross in London and James Politi in Washington