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U.S. President Donald Trump said any peace deal between Ukraine and Russia would require both sides to cede territory, ahead of his planned talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday.
Speaking at a White House press conference on Monday, Trump said the upcoming meeting with Putin would be a “feel-out” session to assess whether Moscow is willing to make a deal to end the conflict. He added that he could know “within two minutes” if progress was possible.
“So I’m going in to speak to Vladimir Putin, and I’m going to be telling him, you’ve got to end this war. You’ve got to end it,” Trump told reporters.
The president said a future meeting could involve Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, potentially turning into a three-way discussion aimed at securing a rapid ceasefire. Trump also said he planned to speak to European leaders soon after his meeting with Putin.
While Trump has previously mentioned the idea of land swaps, neither Kyiv nor Moscow has shown interest in ceding territory. European officials have expressed concern that major concessions to Russia could undermine Western security in the long term.
Ukraine has been attempting to reclaim areas occupied since the start of the conflict in February 2022, which it describes as an unprovoked invasion. Russia, which currently holds about a fifth of Ukraine’s territory, claims it acted to address security threats from Kyiv’s move towards closer ties with the West.
“There’ll be some land swapping going on,” Trump said, adding that Russia had taken “very prime territory” but that “we’re going to try to get some of that territory back” for Ukraine.
However, Ukraine said it will not cede a single inch of its territory, including Donbas, in exchange for a ceasefire. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that any withdrawal would unblock a clear path for renewed Russian attacks, potentially toward Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro and Kharkiv.
His warning comes just days before the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska on Friday - talks that Zelenskyy has been excluded from, stoking fears in Kyiv that President Vladimir Putin is angling to win territory on the table.
Japan has lifted a tsunami advisory issued after an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.9 hit the country's northeastern region on Friday (12 December), the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said. The JMA had earlier put the earthquake's preliminary magnitude at 6.7.
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Iran is preparing to host a multilateral regional meeting next week in a bid to mediate between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The resignation of Bulgaria's government on Thursday (11 December) puts an end to an increasingly unpopular coalition but is likely to usher in a period of prolonged political instability on the eve of the Black Sea nation's entry into the euro zone.
Kyiv has escalated its naval campaign against Moscow’s economic lifelines, claiming a successful strike on a vessel suspected of skirting international sanctions within the Black Sea.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Russian President Vladimir Putin met for a closed-door discussion on the sidelines of the International Forum for Peace and Trust in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, on Friday.
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Iran’s top diplomat, Abbas Araghchi, has welcomed the expansion of ties with neighbouring Azerbaijan, stating that Tehran and Baku are committed to building a ‘shared, secure and mutually respectful’ future, local media reported on Friday.
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