Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov believes that U.S. President Donald Trump during the Alaska summit gave a promise to force Ukraine to hand over Donbas, and wanted Trump to confirm this publicly. This was reported by “Hromadske” citing the New York Times and three U.S. officials.
According to the publication, in September 2025 Lavrov communicated with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. At that time, Lavrov said he believed that Trump had promised to force Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to give up Donbas.
Later, Lavrov instructed the russian embassy in Washington to send Rubio a letter demanding that Trump publicly acknowledge this.
U.S. officials claim that although Trump responded positively to the proposal of russia’s head putin regarding ending the war over Donbas, he did not make any promise to coerce Zelensky.
As NYT writes, Trump and his advisers were outraged. They were told that putin had not authorized this letter. Therefore, U.S. officials considered it a maneuver by Lavrov to demonstrate his own power.