Vladimir Putin is demanding that Ukraine relinquish the entire eastern Donbas region, renounce ambitions to join NATO, remain neutral, and keep Western troops out of the country, according to three sources familiar with top-level Kremlin thinking who spoke to Reuters.
The Russian president met Donald Trump in Alaska on Friday for the first Russia-U.S. summit in over four years and spent almost all of their three-hour closed meeting discussing what a compromise on Ukraine might entail, according to the sources who requested anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the discussions.
Speaking alongside Trump afterwards, Putin expressed hope that the meeting would pave the way for peace in Ukraine, although neither leader provided specifics about what was discussed.
In the most detailed Russian-based reporting to date on Putin’s offer at the summit, Reuters was able to outline the Kremlin’s desired contours for a potential peace deal to end a war that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of casualties.
Essentially, the Russian sources indicated that Putin has compromised on territorial demands he outlined in June 2024, which required Kyiv to cede the entirety of the four provinces Moscow claims as part of Russia: Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, which constitute the Donbas, along with Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south.
Kyiv rejected those terms, equating them to surrender.
In his new proposal, the Russian president maintains his demand that Ukraine withdraw completely from the parts of the Donbas it still controls, according to the three sources. In return, Moscow would halt the current front lines in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, they added.
According to U.S. estimates and open-source data, Russia controls about 88% of the Donbas and 73% of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
Moscow is also willing to relinquish small parts of the Kharkiv, Sumy, and Dnipropetrovsk regions of Ukraine it controls as part of a potential agreement, the sources said.
Putin is also adhering to his previous demands that Ukraine abandon its NATO ambitions and provide a legally binding pledge from the U.S.-led military alliance not to expand further eastward, as well as impose limits on the Ukrainian army and agree that no Western troops will be deployed on Ukrainian soil as part of a peacekeeping force, the sources stated.
Yet, the two sides remain far apart, more than three years after Putin ordered thousands of Russian troops into Ukraine in a full-scale invasion following the annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014 and prolonged fighting in the country’s east between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry had no immediate comment on the proposals.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has consistently rejected the idea of withdrawing from internationally recognized Ukrainian territory as part of a deal and has stated that the industrial Donbas region serves as a fortress preventing 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 enshrined in the country’s constitution and one which Kyiv regards as its most reliable security guarantee. Zelenskyy asserted that it was not up to Russia to decide on the alliance’s membership.
The White House and NATO did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the Russian proposals.
Political scientist Samuel Charap, chair in Russia and Eurasia Policy at RAND, a U.S.-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 U.S. estimates and open-source maps.
The three sources close to the Kremlin said the summit in the Alaskan city of Anchorage had ushered in the best chance for peace since the war began because there had been specific discussions about Russia’s terms and Putin had shown a willingness to compromise.
“Putin is ready for peace – for compromise. That is the message that was conveyed to Trump,” one of the people said.
The sources cautioned that it was unclear to Moscow whether Ukraine would be prepared to cede the remains of the Donbas, and if it did not, the war would continue. Also unclear was whether the United States would grant any recognition to Russian-held Ukrainian territory, they added.
A fourth source said that although economic issues were secondary for Putin, he understood the economic vulnerability of Russia and the scale of the effort required to advance further into Ukraine.
Trump has stated his desire to end the “bloodbath” of the war and be remembered as a “peacemaker president.” He said on Monday he had begun arranging a meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders, to be followed by a trilateral summit with the U.S. president.
“I believe Vladimir Putin wants to see it ended,” Trump said beside Zelenskyy 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 Zelenskyy but that all issues had to be worked through first and there was a question about Zelenskyy’s authority to sign a peace deal.
Putin has repeatedly raised doubts about Zelenskyy’s legitimacy as his term in office was due to expire in May 2024, but the war means no new presidential election has yet been held. Kyiv maintains Zelenskyy remains the legitimate president.
The leaders of Britain, France, and Germany have expressed skepticism that 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 push 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 clearly conveyed to Witkoff that he was ready to compromise and outlined what he could accept for peace, according to two Russian sources.
If Russia and Ukraine could reach an agreement, then there are various options for a formal deal – including a possible three-way Russia-Ukraine-U.S. deal recognized by the U.N. 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 U.N. Security Council: Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States, 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.
