BRUSSELS — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants Ukraine to withdraw from the remaining 30% of the Donetsk region that Ukraine controls as part of a ceasefire deal.

Zelenskyy reiterated that Ukraine would not withdraw from territories it controls because it was unconstitutional and would only serve as a springboard for a future Russian invasion.

Zelenskyy said Putin wants the remaining 9,000 square kilometers (3,500 square miles) of Donetsk under Kyiv’s control, where the war’s toughest battles are grinding on, as part of a ceasefire plan. He said the Russian position was conveyed to him by U.S. officials.

Doing so would hand Russia almost the entirety of the Donbas, a region comprising Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland that Putin has long coveted.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

BRUSSELS — European Union leaders appealed to U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday to defend their security interests at Friday's summit with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine, desperate to exert influence over the meeting from which they are sidelined.

Russian forces closed in on a key territorial grab, potentially to use as leverage in any peace negotiations.

Seeking Trump’s ear before the summit

It was unclear whether even Ukraine will take part in the summit. Trump has said he wants to see whether Putin is serious about ending the war, now in its fourth year.

Trump has disappointed allies in Europe by saying Ukraine will have to give up some Russian-held territory. He also said Russia must accept land swaps, although it was unclear what Putin might be expected to surrender.

The Europeans and Ukraine are wary that Putin, who has waged the biggest land war in Europe since 1945 and used Russia’s energy might to try to intimidate the EU, might secure favorable concessions and set the outlines of a peace deal without them.

European countries’ overarching fear is that Putin will set his sights on one of them next if he wins in Ukraine.

Their leaders said Tuesday they “welcome the efforts of President Trump towards ending Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.” But, they underlined, “the path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine” and “international borders must not be changed by force.”

The Europeans on Wednesday will make a fresh attempt to rally Trump to Ukraine’s cause at virtual meetings convened by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Trump did not confirm whether he would take part but did say “I’m going to get everybody’s ideas” before meeting with Putin.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has rejected the idea that Ukraine must commit to giving up land to secure a ceasefire. Russia holds shaky control over four of the country’s regions, two in the country’s east and two in the south.

“We see that the Russian army is not preparing to end the war,” he said Monday.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the chief of Zelenskyy’s office, said anything short of Russia’s strategic defeat would mean that any ceasefire deal would be on Moscow’s terms, erode international law and send a dangerous signal to the world.

A ‘profoundly alarming moment for Europe’

Trump’s seemingly public rehabilitation of Putin — a pariah in most of Europe — has unnerved Ukraine’s backers.

The summit in Alaska is a “profoundly alarming moment for Europe,” said Nigel Gould-Davies, senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

According to Gould-Davies, Putin might persuade Trump to try to end the war by “accepting Russian sovereignty” over parts of Ukraine, even beyond areas that it currently occupies. Trump also could ease or lift sanctions which are causing “chronic pain” to the Russian economy.

That would provoke a “really serious split in the transatlantic alliance,” he said.

The war isn’t about Russia’s territorial expansion but about Putin’s goal of subordinating Ukraine, which would create the opportunity to threaten other parts of Europe, Gould-Davies said.

It was unclear whether the Europeans also were unsettled by Trump mistakenly saying twice he would be traveling to Russia on Friday to meet Putin. The summit is taking place in the U.S. state of Alaska, which was colonized by Russia in the 18th century until Czar Alexander II sold it to the U.S. in 1867.

Tuesday’s European joint statement was meant to be a demonstration of unity. But Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who is Putin’s closest ally in Europe and has tried to block EU support for Ukraine, was the only one of the bloc’s 27 leaders who refused to endorse it.

Russia closes in on Pokrovsk

Russia appeared close to taking an important city in the Donetsk region, Pokrovsk.

Military analysts using open-source information to monitor the battles said the next 24-48 hours could be critical. Losing Pokrovsk would hand Russia an important victory ahead of the summit. It also would complicate Ukrainian supply lines to the Donetsk region, where the Kremlin has focused the bulk of military efforts.

“A lot will depend on availability, quantity and quality of Ukrainian reserves,” Pasi Paroinen, an analyst with the Finland-based Black Bird Group, wrote on social media late Monday.

Ukraine’s military said its forces are fending off Russian infantry units trying to infiltrate their defensive positions in the Donetsk region. The region’s Ukrainian military command on social media Monday acknowledged that the situation remains “difficult, unpleasant and dynamic.”

Elsewhere in Ukraine, a Russian missile attack on a military training facility left one soldier dead and 11 others wounded, the Ukrainian Ground Forces posted on social media. Soldiers rushing to shelters were hit with cluster munitions, according to the Ukrainian Ground Forces.

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