Updated at 19:25.

"Ukraine will not give up land," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded ahead of the upcoming meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, which is scheduled for Friday in Alaska.

The statement was released by the presidential office in Kiev on Saturday morning. It is the first words from the Ukrainian head of state since the confirmation of the Trump-Putin summit by both the White House and the Kremlin.

The Ukrainian head of state's comments came hours after the US president announced he would meet with Putin in Alaska on August 15. The White House chief of staff suggested that Ukraine may have to give up territory as part of a peace deal with Russia.

He told reporters:"There will be an exchange of territories."

"The war cannot be ended without Ukraine"

According to Zelensky, Ukrainians will not give their own land to the occupier. He told Trump that any solutions without Ukraine would be"solutions directed against peace."

"President Trump announced preparations for a meeting with Putin in Alaska. A far cry from this war that is being waged on our soil, against our people, but which cannot be ended without us, without Ukraine," Zelensky said in a speech.

The Ukrainian president further stated that the war should be ended by Russia, which is the country that started the war and is dragging it out regardless of"deadlines." The Ukrainian president also declared that Ukrainians "will not give their land to the occupiers."

He noted that any decision made without Ukraine is against peace."They will achieve nothing. They are dead decisions. They will not work. We need a real, living peace that people will value," he said.

Putin wants Donbas

Zelensky's speech comes as reports emerge that the United States and Russia are preparing a ceasefire agreement in Ukraine that would confirm Russia's territorial gains.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Vladimir Putin told US President's special envoy Steve Witkoff that Russia would end hostilities in Ukraine in exchange for territorial concessions from Kiev and international recognition of the occupied territories.

According to WSJ sources, Putin told Witkoff that he would agree to a full ceasefire if Ukraine withdrew its troops from the entire Donetsk region. Moscow would then control the territories where the war began in 2014 - Crimea, Luhansk Oblast and Donetsk Oblast.

Ukrainians continue to control the north of Donetsk Oblast, including its central agglomeration, which consists of the cities of Kostyantynivka, Druzhkivka, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, where almost half a million people lived before the war. However, the war has driven many of them from their homes. Today, the Russians are trying to encircle the first city in this important defensive line in eastern Ukraine - Kostyantynivka.

Why did Putin agree to Alaska?

Although it was initially speculated that the meeting between the leaders of Russia and the United States could take place in the Middle East or possibly in Switzerland, many commentators were intrigued by the fact that the delegations will eventually meet in Alaska. That is, on a kind of imaginary border between the Russian Federation and the United States. However, this is still American territory, which is why the question hangs in the air as to why Vladimir Putin agreed to the meeting on non-neutral soil.

For example, Ukrainian commentator Vitaly Portnikov offers two explanations. The first is that Putin does not feel like he is the same player in these negotiations as his counterpart Donald Trump. Portnikov recalled that tradition has shown that in the past, Russian-American or Soviet-American meetings after some significant cooling of relations were held on neutral ground. He mentioned, for example, the meeting between Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan in Reykjavik in 1986.

"Of course, Russian propaganda will claim that this is a symbolic place, that Putin will be the first Russian leader to visit this American state, but believe me, it is not a success," he pointed out, pointing out that Putin practically agreed to come to negotiate on his rival's territory.

And now the second reason. According to Portnikov, Putin can count on the fact that after his visit to Alaska, Trump might agree to visit Russia, which would then be presented as a great success for Russia's foreign policy.

The Ukrainian commentator also points out that if Putin agreed to visit Alaska, it means that the summit is expected to produce some concrete result.

What it will ultimately be will be shown next week.

Territory for territory?

Europe and Ukraine have meanwhile come up with their own plan to end the war, writes the Wall Street Journal.

According to the newspaper, the proposal was presented on Saturday at a meeting with US Vice President J.D. Vance in the UK.

The European plan rejected the Russian proposal to exchange the entire Donetsk region for a ceasefire and requires a mandatory ceasefire before any further steps.

"You can't start the process (of negotiations) by giving up territory in the middle of combat," one of the sources told the newspaper.

Ukrainian media note that the WSJ also writes that, according to the proposal, any territorial exchange should take place only on a reciprocal basis - that is, if Ukraine is to withdraw its troops from some regions, Russia must withdraw its troops from others. Some European officials quoted by the WSJ claim that if Ukraine gives up the Donetsk region, Moscow will have to withdraw its troops from the occupied part of Zaporizhia and Kherson regions.

The European plan also assumes that any possible territorial concessions by Kiev must be backed by security guarantees, including Ukraine's potential membership in NATO, the daily writes.