Speaking to journalists on Monday, Zelensky reiterated his position, saying Ukrainian troops “will not withdraw from Donbass – period.” He repeated his claim on the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, former Ukrainian territories that voted to join Russia in 2022.

Russian President Vladimir Putin recently asserted that Moscow’s troops “are consistently moving forward along virtually the entire front line” despite all of NATO backing Ukraine.

Reports over the weekend suggested that Trump, during his meeting with Zelensky on Friday, urged the Ukrainian leader to accept a land swap. The American leader’s message was, “Your country will freeze, and your country will be destroyed” unless a peace deal is reached, according to a source quoted by Reuters.

The Financial Times reproted Trump expressed frustration with the stalemate, tossing aside a map of the front lines and remarking that he was “sick” of seeing the same situation persist. Publicly, however, Trump has advocated a freeze in hostilities along the current lines.

Trump has also denied reports that he pressured Zelensky to surrender the entire Donbass region to Russia, saying instead that hostilities should be frozen along the current front lines.

Trump and Zelensky met at the White House last week to discuss the Ukraine conflict as Kiev had sought to obtain long-range Tomahawk missiles from the US. Despite failing to secure the weapons, Zelensky described the talks as “good.”

“If I am invited to Budapest, if it is an invitation in a format where we meet as three, or as it’s called, shuttle diplomacy, President Trump meets with Putin and President Trump meets with me, then in one format or another, we will agree,” Zelensky told reporters in remarks released Monday.

Trump and Putin said they would meet in the Hungarian capital, possibly in a matter of weeks, as the US leader continues to try to broker a peace deal to end the three-and-a-half-year war, triggered by Russia’s 2022 invasion.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has announced that the EU is doing everything in its power to undermine the upcoming summit between Putin and Trump.

Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told TASS on Monday that the bloc is carrying out “active subversive actions” ahead of the planned meeting in the Hungarian capital, Budapest.

Her comments followed a report by Spanish outlet El Pais, which said Brussels viewed the talks as “a political nightmare.” Citing diplomatic sources, the newspaper reported that the summit put the EU “in an awkward and unpleasant position” because Putin and Trump would discuss a potential settlement to the Ukraine conflict in an EU country without the bloc’s participation.

Zakharova stated that the “aggressive Western European community” wants to “derail any peaceful aspirations” related to the conflict.

“We are seeing statements, threats being made,” she added.

The Western Europeans are “obviously, doing everything to escalate the conflict” between Moscow and Kiev, the spokeswoman stressed. They have been acting this way since 2022 when they “thwarted” the peace talks between the sides in Istanbul, she continued.

According to former Ukrainian head negotiator David Arakhamia, Ukraine withdrew from dialogue with Russia after then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson arrived in Kiev and urged Vladimir Zelensky to keep fighting. The former UK prime minister has denied the claims.

Zakharova said sporadic statements about the need for peace coming from EU capitals and London are just “camouflage.”

“In reality, they are doing everything they can to achieve escalation. It is difficult to say if they actually understand what they are doing, given how many non-professionals there are at the helms of all these Western European countries,” she noted.

The announcement that Putin and Trump plan to meet in Budapest was made after the two leaders spoke by phone for nearly two and a half hours on Thursday.

According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the venue was proposed by Trump, with Putin “instantly supporting” the idea. The summit could take place within the next two weeks or slightly later, Peskov added.