The proposed Ukrainian land concessions are Putin’s trap, the first diplomat of the EU said to the BBC

The first diplomat of the European Union (EU) warned against the push of Ukraine to abandon the territories to Russia as part of a future peace agreement.

Speaking in his first interview in the United Kingdom since EU leaders joined the Donald Trump white house talks with Ukraine, Kaja Kallas said on the BBC Today program that Russia keep the Ukrainian territories was a “trap in which Putin wanted us to enter”.

The Donbas region in eastern Ukraine has long been disputed by Russia, military assault forcing 1.5 million Ukrainians to flee in the past decade.

Ukraine has always rejected by conceding the donbas to the Kremlin in exchange for peace, although Trump stressed the need for “exchange of territories”.

Kallas – which was placed on the Kremlin’s “List of Research” – also spoke of “credible and robust” security guarantees for a long time for Ukraine.

She admitted that there were not many “concrete steps” for a deterrent at this stage of negotiations.

“The strongest security guarantee is a solid Ukrainian army,” she said, describing the importance of establishing guarantees that were not only on paper. “

She said that it was up to the member states of the “coalition of wishes” to determine exactly what they could contribute and that it was not yet clear to what capacity these forces would operate.

Managers of the main EU countries, including France, Germany, Italy and Finland, joined Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for talks at the White House last week, a few days after Trump organized Russian President Vladimir Putin in a military base in Alaska.

At the Alaska summit, Kallas said Putin had “everything he wanted” and that would have an impact on her interest in negotiating a peace agreement.

“He obtained such a welcome and he wanted sanctions to be implemented, which he also achieved.

“Putin laughs right, not to stop the murder but to increase the murder,” Kallas said. “We forget that Russia has not made a single concession.”

She added that the EU had gathered the 19th package of sanctions to put pressure on the Russian chief in new discussions.

Meanwhile, Trump established a period of two weeks on Thursday to assess the peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.

“I would say that within two weeks, we will know in one way or another,” he said in a telephone interview with Todd Starnes, a right-wing media host Newsmax.

“After that, we may have to take a different approach,” said Trump.

But Zelensky put doubt on Putin showing the will of a meeting with him.

In the comments published to journalists on Thursday, reported by the news agency of the France-Presse agency, Zelensky accused Russia of having avoided the “need” of holding a meeting between the leaders of the two countries.

“The current signals of Russia are, to be honest, indecent. They try to avoid the need to meet. They do not want to end this war.”

He also put pressure on Western allies, saying that Ukraine would like to “understand the architecture of security guarantees within seven to 10 days”.

“We have to understand which country will be ready to do what at all precise moment,” he added.

Zelensky criticized the important air attack by Russia early Thursday, saying that it behaved as if there was no global effort to stop the war.

Eleven different places in Ukraine have been affected, killing at least one and injuring more than a dozen in the western town of Lviv near the Polish border.

A number of European leaders have echoed the EU and Ukrainian opinions on Putin’s reluctance to engage in a peace agreement.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb said Putin should “rarely trust” and that he was skeptical about Putin who finally accepted a bilateral meeting with Zelensky.

French president Emmanuel Macron called the Russian chief “a predator and an ogre at our door” and expressed “the greatest doubt” that he would be ready to work towards peace.

The two leaders were present during the Peace of the White House peace on Monday.

Zelensky said he was ready to meet Putin “in any format”, but told journalists on Thursday that there was still no signs of Moscow that they “really intended to engage in substantial negotiations”.