Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a phone conversation with US President Donald Trump last week, demanded that Kiev give up its full control over Donetsk, a strategically important region of eastern Ukraine, as a condition for ending the war.
Putin has tried for 11 years to conquer the region, but failed, and has been repeatedly pushed back by Ukrainian forces, who are deeply entrenched in the region they believe is a key bulwark against Russia’s rapid advance westward.
Putin’s focus on Donetsk signals that he is not backing down from previous demands that have kept the conflict stuck in a stalemate, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive closed-door talks. Although Trump is optimistic about the agreement, he still said this. Russia or Russian-backed separatists have claimed parts of the region since 2014, but have not been able to take the entire region by force.
Trump has not commented publicly on Putin’s demand for all of Donetsk, which has not been previously reported.
Trump did not support the Russian request in his public statement Friday after a key West Wing meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. According to the Washington Post, he plans to meet with Putin in Hungary in the coming weeks to continue discussing ways to end the war.
After meeting Zelensky on Friday, Trump wrote on social media, “It’s time to stop the killing and make a compromise! There’s been too much bloodshed, the borders of property are being determined by war and courage. They should stop where they are. Let both claim victory, let history decide!”
In a conversation between Trump and Putin, officials told The Washington Post that the Russian leader suggested he would be willing to cede parts of two other regions of Ukraine, Zaporizhia and Kherson, which he has partially conquered, in exchange for full control over Donetsk.
This is a slightly less sweeping territorial claim than the one Trump and Putin made during their summit in Anchorage in August. According to one of two senior officials with knowledge of Putin’s conversation, some White House officials presented it as progress.
The second official, a senior European diplomat, said Ukrainians were unlikely to see it that way. The diplomat said, “It’s like selling your own leg without anything in return.”
Neither the White House nor the Kremlin immediately responded to requests for comment.
The standoff on the front lines between Russian and Ukrainian armies has been largely static in the year-long conflict, with neither side making significant gains. Russia controls about 20 percent of Ukrainian territory. Russia has launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Following a ceasefire in Gaza and an agreement to exchange hostages and prisoners, Trump has refocused his attention on ending the war. The president has been swinging between Russian and Ukrainian positions on the conflict for months.
The Ukrainians had hoped to walk away from Friday’s meeting with long-range Tomahawk missiles, but they returned empty-handed.
Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff pressed the Ukrainian delegation about the handover of Donetsk during the meeting on Friday, saying the region, which is mostly Russian-speaking, is a frequent topic of discussion in the Kremlin, and Ukrainian and European officials view it as sympathetic to Russia’s demands, officials said.
Many Ukrainians – including Zelensky himself – grew up speaking Russian as their mother tongue, and speaking Russian in Ukrainian society has not historically been a sign of sympathy for Moscow. Ukrainians have begun using the Ukrainian language since Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014.
Witkoff was the White House’s chief negotiator with the Kremlin before the Anchorage meeting, which European officials said they believed led to a misunderstanding of Russia’s demands and a failure to make significant progress after the meeting.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is the top administration official tasked with preparing for the upcoming Budapest summit with Putin, which was welcomed by Kiev, the Washington Post reported.
Ukraine has backed Trump’s call for a ceasefire on the current front lines of the conflict ahead of negotiations for a more permanent end to the fighting. Officials have said privately that they accept that Russia is likely to retain de facto control over the captured territory and that they are seeking stronger security assurances from Washington and European countries to prevent Russia from resuming the war.
Ukraine faces another tough winter as Russia targets its energy infrastructure, a similar strategy Kiev has adopted against its enemy.
Trump had considered sending powerful Tomahawk weapons to Ukraine before the meeting, but after a phone call with Putin on Thursday, he appeared to be backing off. Speaking with Zelensky on Friday, Trump said he hoped the war would end without sending missiles.
On Friday, when Trump was asked whether Putin was trying to buy more time, he said he was not worried about it.
“I’ve played against the best players all my life, and I’ve been able to play really, really well,” he said. He further said that it doesn’t matter if it takes some time. “But I think I’m pretty good at it.”