Ukraine’s Donbas Region Will Have To Be Cut Up To End Russian Invasion: Trump
On Air Force One: President Donald Trump said Sunday that Ukraine’s Donbas region must be “dismembered” and most of it left in Russian hands to end the nearly four-year war.
“Let it be cut as it is,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One. “It’s cut right now,” he said, adding that “you can leave it as it is right now.”
“They can negotiate something later,” he said. But for now, both sides of the conflict should “stand on the battle line; go home, stop fighting, stop killing people.”
Trump’s latest comments came after Ukrainian drones attacked a major gas processing facility in southern Russia, starting a fire and forcing the plant to suspend gas imports from Kazakhstan, Russian and Kazakh officials said Sunday.
Operated by state-owned gas giant Gazprom and located in the region of the same name near the border with Kazakhstan, the Orenburg plant is part of a production and processing complex that is one of the largest facilities of its kind in the world, with an annual capacity of 45 billion cubic meters. It manages Orenburg’s own oil and gas fields, as well as gas concentrates from Kazakhstan’s Karachaganak field.
According to Regional Governor Yevgeny Solntsev, drone attacks set fire to a workshop at the factory and damaged part of it. The plant was temporarily unable to process gas originating from Kazakhstan “due to an emergency situation that arose after a drone strike,” Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Energy said on Sunday, citing a notification from Gazprom.
A “large-scale fire” broke out at the Orenburg plant and one of the gas processing and purification units was damaged, Ukraine’s General Staff said in a statement on Sunday.
Kiev has stepped up attacks on Russian energy facilities in recent months and says Moscow is both financing and directly fueling the war effort.
Trump says Ukraine may have to give up territory for peace
Trump has backtracked on pressuring Ukraine to give up taking back territory it lost to Russia in exchange for an end to Moscow’s aggression.
Asked in a Fox News interview Thursday whether Russian President Vladimir Putin would be open to ending the war “without taking a significant amount of property out of Ukraine,” Trump said, “He’ll take something.”
“They fought and he has a lot of property. He won certain properties,” Trump said. “We are the only nation that went in, won the war, and then left.”
The interview aired Sunday on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” program but was conducted before Trump spoke with Putin on Thursday and met with Zelenskyy on Friday.
Later, flying from Florida to Washington on Sunday evening, Trump, who plans to meet Putin in Budapest in the coming weeks, reiterated his position that Ukraine would have to give up territory by “stopping the conflict in its tracks”.
“If you say, ‘You take this, we’ll take that,’ it’s very difficult to negotiate the rest,” he said. “You know, there are so many different permutations.”
The comments marked another change in the US leader’s position on the war. In recent weeks, Trump has shown growing impatience with Putin and has been more open about helping Ukraine win the war.
Contrary to Kiev’s hopes, Trump did not commit to providing the Tomahawks after his meeting with Zelenskyy. The missiles will be the longest-range weapons in Ukraine’s arsenal, allowing it to hit targets deep within Russia, including Moscow, with precision.
Russians modify bombs for deeper strikes
Meanwhile, Ukrainian prosecutors allege that Moscow modified its deadly air-guided bombs to hit civilians deeper into Ukraine. Local officials in Kharkiv said Russia had hit a residential area for the first time using a new rocket-powered aerial bomb.
In the statement made by the Kharkiv regional prosecutor’s office, it was stated that Russia used the UMPB-5R weapon, which can move up to 130 kilometers, in the attack on the city of Lozava on Saturday afternoon. The city is 150 kilometers south of Kharkiv, a significant distance for the weapon to fly.
Russia continued to strike other parts of Ukraine close to the front line. In the Dnipropetrovsk region, at least 11 people were injured when Russian unmanned aerial vehicles hit the Shakhtarske region. Regional Governor Vladyslav Haivanenko said at least 14 five-storey buildings and one store were damaged.
A coal mine in the Dnipropetrovk region was also hit in the Russian attack. The company that operates the mine said about 192 miners were brought to the surface without injury.
The Ukrainian General Staff also claimed that a separate drone strike hit the Novokuibyshevsk oil refinery in Russia’s Samara region near Orenburg, causing a fire and damaging main refinery units.
The Novokuibyshevsk plant, operated by Russian gas giant Rosneft, has an annual capacity of 4.9 million tonnes and produces more than 20 types of oil-based products. Russian officials did not immediately acknowledge Ukraine’s claim or discuss any damages.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said early Sunday that its air defense forces shot down 45 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 12 over the Samara region, 1 over the Orenburg region and 11 over the Saratov region adjacent to Samara.
In response, the Ukrainian air force reported on Sunday that Russia launched 62 drones into Ukrainian territory overnight. It was stated that 40 of them were hit or deviated from the route due to electronic interference.
