Reuters
[Source: Reuters]
Small bands of Russian soldiers thrust deeper into eastern Ukraine on Tuesday ahead of a summit this week between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump, which European Union states fear could end in peace terms imposed on an unlawfully shrunken Ukraine.
In one of the most extensive incursions so far this year, Russian troops advanced near the coal-mining town of Dobropillia, part of Putin’s campaign to take full control of Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
Ukraine’s military dispatched reserve troops, saying they were in difficult combat against small groups of advancing Russian soldiers.
Trump has said any peace deal would involve “some swapping of territories to the betterment of both” Russia and Ukraine, which has up to now depended on the U.S. as its main arms supplier.
Virtually all the territory in question is Ukrainian, alarming President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his European allies.
Zelenskiy and most of his European counterparts have said a lasting peace cannot be secured without Ukraine’s voice in the negotiations, and must comply with international law and Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
They plan to call Trump on Wednesday to sway him ahead of his summit in Alaska on Friday with Putin, and they have praised the U.S. president’s peace efforts, if not every idea he has floated for getting there.
“An imitated rather than genuine peace will not hold for long and will only encourage Russia to seize even more territory,” Zelenskiy said in a statement on Tuesday after a phone call with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who has hosted previous talks between Ukrainian and Russian leaders.
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