President Donald Trump will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in the US state of Alaska on Friday August 15 to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine.
Mr Trump announced the “highly anticipated meeting” on his Truth Social platform.
The announcement comes after Mr Trump said on Friday that the parties were close to a ceasefire deal that could involve "some swapping of territories".
However, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected the idea in a statement posted on Telegram, saying that the country's territorial integrity, enshrined in the constitution, must be non-negotiable.
Ukraine “will not give Russia any awards for what it has done”, he said, and added: “Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupier”.
He also called for Ukraine to be involved in negotiations for lasting peace to be achieved.
“Any solutions that are without Ukraine, are at the same time, solutions against peace. They will not bring anything. These are dead solutions, they will never work,” he said.
He had earlier expressed optimism that there might be a breakthrough in efforts to end the war, which began with Russia's invasion in February 2022.
“We are speaking with our partners to ensure real steps are taken. We are in constant communication with the American side, and our partners, for their part, are also engaging with the United States,” Mr Zelenskyy said in a post on X.
“All are united in the understanding that there is a chance to achieve at least a ceasefire, and that everything depends on the right pressure on Russia.”
Addressing reporters at the White House earlier on Friday, Mr Trump suggested an agreement would involve some exchange of land.
“There'll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both,” the President said. Earlier, Bloomberg News reported that US and Russian officials were working towards an agreement that would lock in Moscow's occupation of territory seized during its military invasion.
Russia claims four Ukrainian regions – Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – as well as the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which it annexed in 2014. Its forces do not fully control all the territory in the four regions.
The meeting comes after US special envoy Steve Witkoff travelled to Moscow for talks with Mr Putin ahead of a deadline set by Mr Trump for Russia to end the war or see secondary sanctions placed on its trading partners.
