Aboard Air Force One
President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the Donbas region of Ukraine should be "cut up", leaving most of it in Russian hands, to end a war that has dragged on for nearly four years.
"Let it be cut the way it is," he told reporters aboard Air Force One. "It's cut up right now," adding that you can "leave it the way it is right now."
"They can negotiate something later on down the line," he said. But for now, both sides of the conflict should "stop at the battle line -- go home, stop fighting, stop killing people."
Trump's latest comments came after Ukrainian drones struck a major gas processing plant in southern Russia, sparking a fire and forcing it to suspend its intake of gas from Kazakhstan, Russian and Kazakh authorities said on Sunday.
The Orenburg plant, run by state-owned gas giant Gazprom and located in a region of the same name near the Kazakh border, is part of a production and processing complex that is one of the world's largest facilities of its kind, with an annual capacity of 45 billion cubic metres. It handles gas condensate from Kazakhstan's Karachaganak field, alongside Orenburg's own oil and gas fields.
According to regional Gov Yevgeny Solntsev, the drone strikes set fire to a workshop at the plant and damaged part of it. The Kazakh Energy Ministry on Sunday said, citing a notification from Gazprom, that the plant was temporarily unable to process gas originating in Kazakhstan, "due to an emergency situation following a drone attack."
Ukraine's General Staff said in a statement Sunday that a "large-scale fire" erupted at the Orenburg plant, and that one of its gas processing and purification units was damaged.
Kyiv has ramped up attacks in recent months on Russian energy facilities it says both fund and directly fuel Moscow's war effort.
Trump says Ukraine may have to give up land for peace
ALSO READ: Kashmir scripture Nilmat Purana mentions use of firecrackers on Diwali
Trump has edged back in the direction of pressing Ukraine to give up on retaking land it has lost to Russia, in exchange for an end to Moscow's aggression.