French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed from Washington on Monday that the possibility of Kyiv ceding territory to Moscow was not discussed at the meeting hosted by his US counterpart Donald Trump at the White House, attended by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other European leaders.

Macron told reporters: “We did not talk about this topic at all today (…) and this for two reasons: first, the priority is security guarantees, and second, we said that (this should be discussed bilaterally and trilaterally),” referring to the upcoming summit between the Ukrainian and Russian presidents first, and then a trilateral summit including the US president.

The French president confirmed that one of the security guarantees to be provided to Ukraine in any peace agreement with Russia is that its army should be “strong” enough to deter any new Russian invasion.

He said: “This afternoon I was able to review the content of these security guarantees which consist of a strong Ukrainian army, capable of confronting and deterring any attack, and thus no restrictions on numbers, capabilities, or armament,” according to AFP.

Macron called for “tightening sanctions” on Russia if the upcoming peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine fail. He said, “If this process is rejected, we all agree that sanctions will have to be tightened, and in any case, a stance must be taken to impose more pressure on the Russian side.”

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz emphasized that Ukraine should not be forced to cede the Donbas region to Russia in any possible peace agreement between the two countries. He noted that Putin and Zelensky are expected to meet within the next two weeks.

The German chancellor said after talks at the White House that “the Russian demand that Kyiv give up the free parts of Donbas is frankly equivalent to suggesting that the United States give up Florida.” He confirmed that this issue was not directly discussed in the White House talks.

Merz’s statement came after Trump again raised on Monday the possibility of a “land swap” between Ukraine and Russia.

A source told AFP that Trump supports a Russian proposal for Kyiv to cede the Donetsk and Luhansk regions (east) and for the front line in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions (south) to be frozen.