According to reports, former US President Donald Trump has disclosed that if re-elected in November, he intends to persuade Kyiv to give up its land, which would put an end to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in just one day.
The Washington Post was told that, as part of Trump's plan, Ukraine will be urged to hand over Crimea and the Donbas border region as a step towards putting an end to the conflict.
"President Trump is the only one talking about stopping the killing," said Trump's campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt.
"Any speculation about President Trump's plan is coming from unnamed and uninformed sources who have no idea what is going on or what will happen."
According to Trump sources, the former president thinks that the people of Ukraine would welcome the deal, with both Russia and Ukraine wanting "to save face, they want a way out."
While Trump has frequently claimed that he could put an end to the conflict in Ukraine in just one day, the Republican Party Leader has also urged Russia to strike NATO countries that do not "pay their dues."
In a video seen by the Daily Mail, recorded in February last year, Trump said: "If I were president, the Russia-Ukraine war would never have happened... never in a million years."
"But even now, if I were president, I'd be able to negotiate an end to this horrible and rapidly escalating war within 24 hours," he continued.
Despite having earlier claimed that he could work out a deal between the two nations, the leader of the Republican Party has not backed or organised any peace talks between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
While attending a press conference with current US President Joe Biden in December last year concerning Ukraine's stalled counter-offensive against Russia, the Ukrainian president was asked if he would give up territory to end the nearly two-year-long assault.
Speaking on behalf of Kyiv, Zelensky declared that he would not surrender any territory to Moscow.
"That's insane, to be honest," Zelensky said through an English interpreter.
"That's part of Ukrainian society. We are talking about human beings. They are being tortured, they are being raped, and they are being killed," he added. "That's not a matter of territory. That's a matter of life, families, children, and their histories."
"I don't know whose idea it is, but I have a question for these people: Are they ready to give up their children to terrorists? I think no," Zelensky continued.
Michael Kofman, an analyst of the Russia-Ukraine war at the nonpartisan research centre Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, also explained: "No amount of leverage the United States has is likely to compel Ukrainian leadership to engage in policies that would constitute domestic political suicide."
"And no amount of leverage the United States has can compel Ukraine to cede territory or engage in these concessions. This is a situation where if you're willing to give a hand, the other side will very quickly want the rest of the arm."
In a bid to make a come-back as president of the US, in 2020, Trump was caught attempting to coerce Zelenskyy into investigating Biden.
Again, during the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, Trump was also impeached for trying to manipulate the Ukrainian president into investigating Hunter Biden, the son of Joe Biden, as well as the cybersecurity company that Hunter was managing in Ukraine at the time, named CloudStrike.
Fiona Hill, Trump's former top Russia adviser, told The Washington Post that Trump's team has been "thinking about this very much in silos, that this is just a Ukraine-Russia thing."
"They think of it as a territorial dispute rather than one about the future of European security and the world order by extension."
