Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, has said no one should put pressure on Ukraine’s leader to surrender territory to secure a peace deal with Russia.
Tusk made the comment on the X platform on Sunday in apparent reference to reports that U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff had pushed Ukraine to forfeit the eastern Donbas region to Russia.
The Washington Post reported that Witkoff had put pressure on a Ukrainian delegation during a meeting at the White House on Friday.
The news was followed by an interview with President Donald Trump aired by Fox Business on Sunday in which the U.S. head of state said Russia’s Vladimir Putin “is going to take something,” in any peace agreement.
“He’s won certain property,” Trump said.
‘Pressure Russia’
Later on Sunday, Donald Tusk took to social media to stress that the country that should be pressured is Russia.
“None of us should exert pressure on Zelenskyy on the issue of territorial concessions,” he posted. “Everybody should pressure Russia to cease aggression. Concessions have never been the path to just and lasting peace.”
Surrendering the Donbas has been a key demand of the Kremlin in talks aimed at securing peace. But giving up the land remains unacceptable to the Ukrainian leadership. In addition to being a major territorial concession, the heavily fortified and entrenched area forms a ‘fortress belt’ holding back Russian forces and potentially stopping them from marching on the capital.
The Washington Post reported that during a phone call last Thursday, the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, told Trump that Moscow may be willing to relinquish occupied parts of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, but only in exchange for the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which together make up the Donbas.
Presidents Trump and Putin are expected to meet face-to-face in Budapest in the near future to discuss the possibility of ending the war.