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By Ellie Cook
Senior Defense Reporter
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A senior Ukrainian official said it would be "the right thing to do" for U.S. President Donald Trump to invite Ukraine's leader Volodymyr Zelensky to next week's planned Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, urging that no talks on ending the war take place without Kyiv at the table.
Oleksandr Merezhko, chair of Ukraine's parliamentary foreign affairs committee, told Newsweek on Sunday that bringing Zelensky into the discussions would align with the principle of "nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine." His comments followed U.S. media reports that the White House is considering adding the Ukrainian leader to the meeting set for Friday, August 15, the first in-person talks between Trump and Putin since 2019.
The White House is weighing up inviting Zelensky, NBC News reported late on Saturday, citing a senior administration official and three people briefed on the discussions. It is "absolutely" a possibility, and "everyone is hopeful that it would happen," the official told the outlet.
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Newsweek could not independently verify the report and has emailed the White House for comment. A White House official said in a statement to NBC: "The President remains open to a trilateral summit with both leaders. Right now, the White House is focusing on planning the bilateral meeting requested by President Putin."
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The U.K., France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Finland, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen issued a joint statement on Sunday reinforcing Kyiv's stance. "The path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine," the statement read. "We remain committed to the principle that international borders must not be changed by force."
Trump announced the meeting with Putin on Friday, calling it "highly anticipated."
Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov confirmed the meeting, saying on Saturday that the White House and the Kremlin would be "working vigorously hard" on the summit's agenda in the next few days.
The U.S. is separated from Russia by roughly 55 miles across the Bering Strait. "It does make sense if our delegation simply crosses the Bering Strait and if such an important and expected meeting between the two leaders takes place specifically in Alaska," Ushakov said.
"The presidents will undoubtedly focus on discussing ways to reach a sustainable settlement to the Ukraine crisis," Ushakov added. Trump has swung from flattering the Russian leader to overtly criticizing Putin as the Kremlin held off on inking a ceasefire deal pushed by the U.S.
Trump said on Friday there would be "some swapping of territories to the betterment of both."
"It's not clear what exactly Trump means," Merezhko said. "If he means swapping Ukrainian territories between Russia, the aggressor, and Ukraine, the victim of the Russian aggression, then it looks like appeasement of [the] aggressor."
"It is not feasible and demonstrates Trump's misunderstanding of the essence of this war and his desire to chase superficial applause," said Oleg Dunda, a Ukrainian MP and also a member of Zelensky's party.
"No one will deviate from this – and no one will be able to," Zelensky said in a post to messaging app Telegram. "Ukrainians will not gift their land to the occupier."
Russia currently controls about a fifth of Ukrainian territory, concentrated in the east of the country and much of it captured since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022. The Kremlin said in fall 2022 it had annexed the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions —collectively known as the Donbas, Ukraine's industrial heartland —and the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. Russia does not control all the territory in these regions, also referred to as oblasts.
Moscow annexed the Crimean peninsula, to the south of mainland Ukraine, in 2014. Russia's control over any Ukrainian region is not currently internationally recognized.
Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, met Putin earlier this week for what Trump described as a "highly productive" meeting with the Kremlin chief.
Putin proposed a ceasefire deal to Witkoff that demanded major concessions on territory in the east, particularly Donetsk, from Ukraine, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing European and Ukrainian officials. Germany's Bild newspaper reported on Saturday that Witkoff had misunderstood Russia's position on a ceasefire deal, taking Putin's demands for Ukraine to withdraw from Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson as an offer for Moscow to pull troops from the two regions.
European leaders offered a "counterproposal" after Putin's meeting with Witkoff, which rejected the idea that Ukraine would cede territory it still holds in Donetsk, WSJ reported.
The Kremlin has so far refused to agree to a ceasefire, and denied Kyiv's repeated requests for a face-to-face meeting between Zelensky and Putin.
"I don't think that Putin would refuse to attend the summit if Zelensky joins," Merezhko said. "Trump could meet first in Alaska with Putin and the next day with Putin and Zelensky."
But the optimism for concrete results from the Alaska meeting seems muted in Kyiv. "I doubt that there will be substantial progress," Merezhko said.
"Nothing has changed," said Dunda.
Ushakov said Russia had already invited Trump to Russian territory for the "next meeting" between the two presidents.
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