Russian President Vladimir Putin is demanding that Ukraine cede the entire eastern Donbas region, abandon its NATO ambitions, remain neutral and keep Western troops out of the country, three sources familiar with top-level Kremlin thinking told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Putin met with US President Donald Trump in Alaska on Friday for the first Russia-US summit in more than four years, and spent almost the entirety of the three-hour, closed-door session discussing what a potential compromise on Ukraine might look like, according to the sources.
Following the meeting, Putin said, the meeting would hopefully open up the road to peace in Ukraine.
However, neither leader gave up any specifics pertaining to their closed-door session.
Reuters outlines what is at stake for Ukraine, drawing on Russian sources that detail Putin's offer at the summit to end a war that has killed and injured hundreds of thousands.
According to the Russian sources, it all boils down to this, Putin compromised on the territorial demands he made in June 2024, which would require Kyiv to cede the entirety of the four provinces Moscow claims as part of Russia: Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine - which make up the Donbas - plus Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south.
Kyiv rejected those conditions, calling them tantamount to surrender.
In his new proposal, the Russian president is consistent in his demand that Ukraine relinquish completely from the parts of the Donbas it still controls, according to the three sources.
In return, though, Moscow would halt the current front lines in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, they added.
Russia controls about 88% of the Donbas and 73% of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, according to US estimates and open-source data.
Moscow is also willing to hand over the small parts of the Kharkiv, Sumy, and Dnipropetrovsk regions of Ukraine it controls, as part of a possible deal, the sources said.
Putin is also not letting go of his previous demands that Ukraine abandon its NATO ambitions, coupled with a legally binding pledge from the US-led military alliance that it will not continue its expansion further eastwards, as well as for limits on the Ukrainian army.
Moreover, he wants an agreement that no Western troops will be deployed on the ground in Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping force, the sources said.
Ukraine's foreign ministry did not make any immediate comment on the proposals.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has repeatedly rejected the idea of ceding any internationally recognised Ukrainian land as part of a deal, while insisting that the industrial Donbas region serves as a fortress holding back Russian advances deeper into Ukraine.
"If we're talking about simply withdrawing from the east, we cannot do that," he told reporters in comments released by Kyiv on Thursday. "It is a matter of our country's survival, involving the strongest defensive lines."
Meanwhile, joining NATO is a strategic objective upheld in the country's constitution and one which Kyiv sees as its most reliable security guarantee.
Zelenskiy said Russia has no say over the alliance's decisions on membership.
The White House and NATO didn't immediately respond to requests for comment on the Russian proposals.
Political scientist Samuel Charap, chair in Russia and Eurasia Policy at RAND, a US-based global policy think-tank, said any requirement for Ukraine to withdraw from the Donbas remained a non-starter for Kyiv, both politically and strategically.
"Openness to 'peace' on terms categorically unacceptable to the other side could be more of a performance for Trump than a sign of a true willingness to compromise," he added.
"The only way to test that proposition is to begin a serious process at the working level to hash out those details."
Trump: Putin wants to see it ended
Russian forces currently control a fifth of Ukraine, an area about the size of the American state of Ohio, according to US estimates and open-source maps.
The summit in the Alaskan city of Anchorage had provided the best chance for peace ever since the war began, because there had been specific discussions about Russia's terms, and Putin had shown a willingness to give ground, the three sources close to the Kremlin said.
"Putin is ready for peace - for compromise. That is the message that was conveyed to Trump," one of the people said.
The sources, however, cautioned that it was unclear to Moscow whether Ukraine would be prepared to withdraw from the remains of the Donbas, and that if it did not, then the war would continue.
Also unclear was whether or not the United States would give any recognition to Russian-held Ukrainian territory, they added.
A fourth source said that though economic issues were secondary for Putin, the economic vulnerability of Russia and the strain it can impose going further into Ukraine are not lost on him.
Trump has said he wants to end the "bloodbath" of the war and be remembered as a "peacemaker president".
He said on Monday he had begun setting up a meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders, to be followed by a trilateral summit with the US president.
"I believe Vladimir Putin wants to see it ended," Trump said beside Zelenskiy in the Oval office.
"I feel confident we are going to get it solved."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that Putin was prepared to meet Zelenskiy but that all issues had to be worked through first, and there was a question about Zelenskiy's authority to sign a peace deal.
Putin has repeatedly cast doubt on Zelenskiy's legitimacy, noting that his term was set to expire in May 2024. However, the ongoing war has postponed any new presidential election as Kyiv maintains that Zelenskiy remains the legitimate president.
The leaders of Britain, France and Germany have raised doubts over whether Putin wants to end the war.
Security Guarantees for Ukraine
Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff was instrumental in paving the way for the summit and the latest drive for peace, according to two of the Russian sources.
Witkoff met Putin in the Kremlin on August 6 with Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov.
At the meeting, Putin communicated clearly to Witkoff what he was willing to put on the table and outlined what he could accept for peace, according to two Russian sources.
Provided Russia and Ukraine could reach an agreement, there are various options for a formal deal, including a possible tripartite Russia-Ukraine-US deal that is recognised by the UN Security Council, one of the sources said.
Another option is to revisit the failed 2022 Istanbul agreements, where Russia and Ukraine discussed Ukraine's permanent neutrality in return for security guarantees from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, the sources added.
"There are two choices: war or peace, and if there is no peace, then there is more war," one of the people said.
Comments