Zelenskyy rules out ceding territory ahead of Trump-Putin talks; Russian troops make sudden advance in eastern Donetsk region. What we know on day 1,267
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President Vladimir Putin updated North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on his upcoming talks with US president Donald Trump in Alaska this week, the Kremlin said on Tuesday. North Korea’s state news agency KCNA later reported the two leaders’ call without mentioning the meeting scheduled on Friday between Putin and Trump. Putin expressed appreciation for North Korea’s help in “liberating” the Kursk region in western Russia in the war against Ukraine and “the bravery, heroism and self-sacrificing spirit displayed by service personnel of the Korean People’s Army,” KCNA said, and the two leaders pledged to strengthen cooperation. North Korea has dispatched more than 10,000 troops to support Russia’s campaign in western Russia in the Ukraine conflict and is believed to be planning another deployment, according to a South Korean intelligence assessment.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Ukraine could not agree to a Russian proposal to give up more of his country’s territory in exchange for a ceasefire because Moscow would use what it gained as a springboard to start a future war. Speaking to journalists in the run-up to the Trump-Putin summit, and a day before a virtual meeting with US and European leaders, Zelenskyy said he believed Putin wanted to dominate his country because he “does not want a sovereign Ukraine”.
