Kyiv, Ukraine: With US President Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin preparing to meet in Alaska on Friday – ending the Russian leader’s years of diplomatic isolation with the West – Ukraine’s sidelined leader warned that the Kremlin would try to “deceive America” as Trump pushed to end the war.

President Volodymyr Zelensky is determined to demonstrate that his country is not the obstacle to peace by emphasising Ukraine’s willingness to accept an unconditional ceasefire, an idea that Russia has rejected.

In this photo provided by Ukraine’s 65th Mechanised Brigade press service, recruits train in a sunflower field in the Zaporizhzhia region on Monday.Credit: AP

He has cautioned that Putin will try to drive a wedge between the US, Ukraine and its European allies by putting forth demands that the Kremlin knows Ukraine cannot accept and then portraying Zelensky as the barrier to a deal.

“We understand the Russians’ intention to try to deceive America – we will not allow this,” Zelensky said in his evening address to the nation Sunday night.

But even as Ukraine and its European backers are pressing hard for Zelensky to be included in the negotiations, Trump suggested on Monday that he was already frustrated with the Ukrainian leader, seeming to claim that Ukraine was fighting a war of choice.

“I was a little bothered by the fact that Zelensky was saying, ‘I have to get constitutional approval’” to relinquish territory, Trump told reporters. “He’s got approval to go into war and kill everybody, but he needs approval to do a land swap.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is adamant his country will not hand over any........

© The Age