Trump sparks horror fears for Ukraine ahead of Zelensky summit as Putin demands land grab

As President Zelensky prepares to head to the White House on Monday to discuss the outcome of Friday's peace talks with Russia, the Ukrainian leader will now have an even bigger issue to contend with after President Putin named a part of east Ukraine as his desired price for peace.

During his meeting with US President Donald Trump at Friday's Alaska summit in Anchorage, the Russian leader reportedly offered to freeze the front lines in two other Ukrainian provinces, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, if Ukraine is willing to withdraw from their heavily fortified toehold in the Donbas - a prized area in the industrial heartland of the country.

According to Putin, the Ukrainian front lines in Donetsk are already on the verge of collapse, however Zelensky was quick to lay these rumours to rest when he spoke to Trump on Saturday and told him Ukraine was in no such danger

The highly anticipated summit in Alaska had originally been touted as the platform from which Trump would be able to announce that he had helped to secure a peace deal for the warring nations, however the reality was far from that, with no signs of a deal anywhere near completion after three hours of negotiations.

There was some progress made, admittedly, with both Russia and the USA lauding the outcome as "positive", although neither side disclosed the details of which points they had agreed upon and which they had not.

Meanwhile in Kyiv, Ukrainians were less than thrilled by the summit taking place at all without President Zelensky, and even less so when it emerged that Putin had been given a red-carpet welcome and a genial enough reception - that Putin himself even invited Trump to Moscow for further talks.

Prior to the summit, President Trump had been quick to draw his lines in the sand and demanded that Putin agree to an immediate ceasefireor face the prospect of severe sanctions targeting buyers of Russian oil. Yet after meeting in Alaska, sanctions appeared to be the last thing on Trump's mind, as he downplayed the need for such retaliatory measures.

"The best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold up," he told reporters.

While not the resolution many had hoped for, Trump's preferred timeline of skipping ahead to a peace deal rather than a ceasefire did meet with the approval of several European leaders, including the UK's own Sir Keir Starmer.

The British Prime Minister praised Trump for "bringing us closer than ever before to ending Russia's illegal war in Ukraine" and said that he should be "commended" on his leadership skills.

There is also talk of some European leaders heading to Washington to support Mr.Zelensky on Monday, although there are no current plans for Starmer to attend. Part of their desire to oversee the process is to secure a guarantee for Ukraine that the country's security will be preserved by the US, should Zelensky be forced to cede the Donbas region.

An arrangement inspired by Article 5, but without giving Ukraine NATO membership had been raised by Trump during his meeting with Putin. It is currently unknown whether President Zelensky or European leaders would agree on such measures.

Following his meeting with Putin on Friday, the US president warned that Zelensky had "got to make a deal" if he wanted to secure peace. He told Fox News: "Russia is a very big power, and they're not. They're great soldiers."

Although how many concessions Zelensky is willing to make when Russia appears to have made very little - remains to be seen.