MOSCOW – Vladimir Putin is demanding that Ukraine leave the entire eastern Donbas region, abandon its ambitions to join NATO, remain neutral, and keep Western troops out of the country, three sources familiar with the Kremlin’s top leadership told Reuters.
The Russian president met Donald Trump in Alaska on Friday for the first Russia-US summit in more than four years and spent nearly three hours behind closed doors discussing how a compromise on Ukraine could be reached, according to the sources, who asked not to be named to discuss sensitive matters.
Speaking alongside Trump, Putin said he hoped the meeting would pave the way for peace in Ukraine – but neither leader gave details of what they discussed.
In the most detailed Russian-based reporting to date about Putin’s offer at the summit, Reuters outlined what the Kremlin wants to see in a potential peace deal to end a war that has killed and wounded millions.
In the most detailed Russian-based reporting to date about Putin’s offer at the summit, Reuters outlined what the Kremlin wants to see in a potential peace deal to end a war that has killed and wounded millions.
Kiev has rejected those terms as tantamount to surrender.
In his new proposal, the Russian president has stuck to his demand for a complete withdrawal from the parts of Ukraine’s Donbass that it still controls, according to three sources. However, in return, Moscow would halt the current front lines in Zaporizhia and Kherson, he added.
According to US estimates and open-source data, Russia controls about 88% of Donbas and 73% of Zaporizhia and Kherson.
Sources said Moscow was prepared to cede small parts of Ukraine’s Kharkiv, Sumy and Dnipropetrovsk regions as part of a potential deal.
Putin has also stuck to his previous demands that Ukraine abandon its NATO ambitions and obtain a legally binding pledge from the US-led military alliance not to expand eastward, as well as to limit the Ukrainian military and agree that no Western troops would be deployed on the ground in Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping force.
The two sides have been estranged for more than three years, even after Putin ordered thousands of Russian troops into Ukraine following the annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014 and the protracted fighting between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops in the country’s east.
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment on the proposals.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly rejected the idea of withdrawing from internationally recognized Ukrainian territory, saying the industrial Donbass region serves as a bulwark against Russian advances deep into Ukraine.
“If we are talking about withdrawing from the east, we cannot do it,” he told reporters in comments released by Kyiv on Thursday. “This is a question of the very existence of our country, which includes the strongest defensive lines.”