According to sources briefed on Moscow’s thinking, under the peace plans discussed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump during their Alaska summit, Russia would give up small areas of occupied Ukraine, and Kyiv would give up large areas of its eastern territory that Moscow has been unable to seize. The story surfaced the day after Trump and Putin met at an Alaskan air force post, the first time a U.S. president and the head of the Kremlin have met since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the president of Ukraine, is scheduled to visit Washington on Monday to speak with Trump on a potential resolution to the full-scale conflict that Putin started in February 2022.
In an interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News, Trump claimed that he and Putin had “largely agreed” on territory transfers and security guarantees for Ukraine, despite the fact that the summit did not result in the ceasefire he said he had desired.
He declared, “I think we’re pretty close to a deal,” but Ukraine must accept it. They might say “no”.
According to the two sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss delicate subjects, their understanding of Putin’s plans was primarily derived from conversations between European, American, and Ukrainian leaders, and they pointed out that it was incomplete.
Early on Saturday, Trump gave Zelenskiy and European leaders an update on his summit talks. It was unclear at first if Putin’s proposals were a prelude to negotiations or more of a final offer that would not be discussed.
PEACE IN UKRAINIAN LAND
If taken at face value, Ukraine’s government would find it extremely difficult to agree to at least some of the requests. A major demand of Zelenskiy, whose nation is bombarded by Russian drones and ballistic missiles on a regular basis, was blocked by Putin’s offer, which excluded a ceasefire until a thorough agreement is established. Any withdrawal from Ukrainian territory, such as the Donetsk region, where its forces are buried and which Kyiv claims is an essential defensive structure to stop Russian advances farther into its territory, has already been refused by Ukraine. According to the sources, Russia would be willing to restore relatively modest areas of Ukrainian territory that it has captured in the northeastern Kharkiv region and northern Sumy. According to Ukraine’s Deep State battlefield mapping project, Russia controls areas of the Sumy and Kharkiv regions that are approximately 440 square kilometres in size. Russia claims the 6,600 square km of Donbas, which includes the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, although Ukraine controls most of it. According to the sources, the Americans were aware that Russia’s leader was also attempting to obtain legal acknowledgement of Russian sovereignty over Crimea, which Moscow had taken from Ukraine in 2014. Whether it meant recognition by the U.S. government or, for example, all Western powers and Ukraine was unclear. Formal acknowledgement of Moscow’s control over the peninsula is rejected by Kyiv and its European allies. They claimed that Putin would also anticipate that some of the sanctions imposed on Russia will be lifted. But they couldn’t say whether this extended to European and American sanctions. Trump stated on Friday that while he may have to do so “in two or three weeks”, he did not immediately need to think about imposing retaliatory tariffs on nations like China for purchasing Russian oil, which is the target of several Western sanctions. According to the sources, Ukraine would also not be allowed to join NATO, although Putin appeared amenable to Ukraine obtaining security guarantees of some sort. They did, however, emphasise that it was unclear what this actually meant. According to European officials, Trump spoke with them on Saturday about security assurances for Ukraine and also brought up the notion of an “Article 5”-style guarantee outside of the NATO military alliance. Under its Article 5 clause, NATO considers any attack on one of its 32 members to be an attack on all. The country’s constitution makes joining the Atlantic alliance one of Kyiv’s strategic goals. According to the reports, Russia would also seek the Russian Orthodox Church’s freedom of movement and official status for the Russian language in areas of or throughout Ukraine.
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