WASHINGTON — Sen. Lindsey Graham said in an interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that Russia and Ukraine would have to swap some territory to end the war, echoing President Donald Trump‘s comments about land exchanges.
“I want to be honest with you, Ukraine is not going to evict every Russian, and Russia is not going to Kyiv, so there will be some land swaps at the end,” Graham, R-S.C., said during Sunday’s interview.
That idea has been a non-starter for Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that Ukraine would “not give their land to occupiers.” His comments came after Trump said on Friday that “there’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both.”
Graham said land exchanges would only happen “after you have security guarantees to Ukraine to prevent Russia from doing this again.”
“You need to tell Putin what happens if he does it a third time,” Graham said, referring to Russia annexing Crimea in 2014 in addition to Russia’s 2022 invasion.
Asked during the interview whether it was the right move for Trump to hold a summit with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in Alaska this Friday in an attempt to broker a ceasefire agreement, Graham said he was “very okay” with the meeting, later adding that he hoped Zelenskyy could be involved.
“You can’t end a war without talking. I do hope that Zelenskyy can be part of the process. I’ll leave that up to the White House,” he said.
NBC News previously reported that the White House was considering inviting Zelenskyy to the meeting. Asked on CNN’s “State of the Union” whether Zelenskyy might attend, U.S. ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker said, “I certainly think it’s possible.”
“Certainly there can’t be a deal that everybody that’s involved in it doesn’t agree to,” Whitaker said Sunday. Referring to the idea of territorial exchange, he “no big chunks or sections are going to be just given that haven’t been fought for or earned on the battlefield.”
Oksana Markarova, the Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S., said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that Zelenskyy would be willing to travel to Alaska.
“We have shown that he is ready to be anywhere to advance the agenda of peace,” Markarova said. “So if needed, President Zelenskyy of course will be present at the meetings.”
Markarova also pushed back against the concept of “buffer zones,” calling it an “outdated” idea. She referred to the frontlines of the war as “the frontline between evil and good,” saying that the question is whether that boundary would be on Ukraine’s borders or in Europe.
Graham’s comments on the exchange of territory are a shift from his previous position. In 2023, he said in a statement that “The Ukrainians understand you don’t end wars by giving territory to the aggressor.” The senator also warned at the time that if Putin was not stopped in Ukraine, “he will keep going,” increasing the chance that NATO could be drawn into a war.
Asked on Sunday about those comments, Graham pointed to what he believed should be done to deter Russia from invading Ukraine a third time. He said the U.S. and allies should continue arming Ukraine, put some European forces on the ground, and build up “economic integration.”
If Putin were to invade Ukraine again, he would “be fighting more than just Ukraine, having some European forces on the ground as trip wires,” Graham said.
He also pointed to the split of Germany’s capital after World War II into East and West Berlin and later reunification, noting that the city “existed divided for a very long time.”
In an interview taped before Trump announced the Alaska summit, Vice President JD Vance said a negotiated settlement would probably have elements that neither side likes.
"It’s not going to make anybody super happy," Vance said. "Both the Russians and the Ukrainians, probably, at the end of the day, are going to be unhappy with it.
In the interview, which aired Sunday, Vance said Trump "needs to force President Putin and President Zelenskyy, really, to sit down, to figure out their differences."
"The way to peace is to have a decisive leader sit down and force people to come together," Vance said.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week” that Ukraine must be involved in moves to end the war.
“Let’s hope that Friday will be an important step in that process,” he said. “We need Ukraine at the table. It will be about territory. It will be, of course, about security guarantees, but also about the absolute need to acknowledge that Ukraine decides on its own future.”
Rutte said neither Ukraine’s troop levels nor NATO’s presence “on the eastern flank in countries like Latvia, Estonia and Finland” should be limited.
Separately, former national security adviser John Bolton, who served during Trump’s first term, criticized the location of the Trump-Putin summit. “Holding this meeting on American soil” was “legitimizing a pariah leader of a rogue state,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.”
“He’s allowed Putin to get first mover advantage by putting his peace plan on the table first,” Bolton said.
