Ukrainian military recruits train in a sunflower field in the Zaporizhzhia region on Monday.Credit: Ukraine’s 65th Mechanized Brigade/AP
Militarily, the Ukrainian president would have got nothing in return, other than a halt to the fighting, while Russia would have been allowed to bypass some of Ukraine’s stiffest defences for free.
Ukrainian medics of Da Vinci Wolves Battalion treat their injured comrades near Pokrovsk on Sunday.Credit: AP
There was some talk of Russian forces being made to withdraw from the northern region of Sumy and neighbouring Kharkiv. This strategy, according to Jaroslava Barbieri, a research fellow at Chatham House’s Ukraine Forum, was designed by Putin to position Zelensky as the main blockage to peace in Trump’s eyes.
“I’d say in demanding swathes of Ukrainian territory as part of a peace deal, Putin is aware the condition is unacceptable for most Ukrainians,” Barbieri said.
Rejecting the offer could “portray Ukraine’s position as uncooperative and ungrateful to Trump’s peace-brokering efforts,” she added.
Barbieri said: “It could drive a wedge between Trump and European allies, who have reiterated the importance of preserving Ukraine’s sovereignty.
“And … potentially destabilise Ukrainian society by mobilising grievances among the minority who are willing to accept concessions to end the war.”
Polling by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology released in June found that just 38 per cent of Ukrainians were willing to accept territorial losses “in order to achieve peace as soon as possible and preserve independence”.
Ukrainian soldiers fire at Russian drones in the Dnipropetrovsk region of Ukraine on Sunday.Credit: AP
Firefighters put out the blaze after a Russian drone hit the market in the Donetsk town of Druzhkivka on August 2.Credit: Ukraine’s 24th Mechanised Brigade press service/AP
In comparison, 52 per cent said they were firmly against ceding land “even if this makes the war last longer”.
But Zelensky has accepted that some form of cession of territory will be necessary to end the war. Without it, he’d be likely to lose US support, and eventually European allies would start to fade away.
Trump declared on Monday that there will be “some swapping, some changes to land”.
Sources have told Britain’s Daily Telegraph that Zelensky could be ready to stop fighting, freeze the front line and hand over de facto control of territories occupied by Russian forces to Moscow as part of any settlement. These include swathes of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Crimea.
Volodymyr Zelensky has not been invited to the meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska.Credit: Bloomberg
Trump added: “We’re going to try to get some of that territory back for Ukraine.”
The key to Zelensky managing the process and selling it back to his public will be in the language. De jure recognition of Russia’s control would require a referendum and would be likely to stoke tensions in the population, enough to hurt Zelensky at the ballot box in any future election.
Agreeing to de facto control, which is not legally recognised, in acceptance of the temporary reality of the situation on the ground is more likely.
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One possibility for this being discussed among war-watchers would be to replicate the Sino-British Joint Declaration signed between China and the United Kingdom to decide on Hong Kong’s future. That deal saw London return sovereignty to Beijing in 1997, but under the condition that it would maintain Hong Kong’s special status for 50 years.
Could Ukraine and Russia agree to recognise that the Donbas regions are legally Ukrainian but managed as if they belonged to Moscow for a set period of time? That would be likely to settle Zelensky’s referendum problem by kicking any real decision into the long grass. The bloodshed would stop and the line in the sand would be drawn – for now.
However, Moscow would use the time to sow anti-Ukrainian sentiment in the region, with the intention of making its eventual return almost impossible and unpalatable for Ukrainians, who have all lost a father, brother or friend in the war.
Whatever the proposal, it would appear that Putin has covertly edged closer to one of his war aims by leaving Zelensky with a decision that will shape his future as president. And he has put the spotlight back on Ukraine’s leader.
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Trump cut through the public protestations on Monday. The US president said: “I was a little bothered by the fact that Zelensky was saying: ‘Well, I have to get constitutional approval.’ I mean, he’s got approval to go into war and kill everybody, but he needs approval to do a land swap?”
The final representations will be made by Zelensky and other European leaders in a video call with Trump on Wednesday US time. Forty-eight hours later, Putin will arrive in Alaska.
Telegraph, London
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