Putin wants official status for Russian language in Ukraine
17/8/2025 6:08
Russia would relinquish tiny
pockets of occupied Ukraine and Kyiv would cede swathes of its
eastern land which Moscow has been unable to capture, under
peace proposals discussed by Russia's Vladimir Putin and Donald
Trump at their Alaska summit, sources briefed on Moscow's
thinking said.
The account emerged the day after Trump and Putin met at an
airforce base in Alaska, the first encounter between a U.S.
president and the Kremlin chief since before the start of the
Ukraine conflict.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is due to travel to
Washington on Monday to discuss with Trump a possible settlement
of the full-scale war, which Putin launched in February 2022.
Although the summit failed to secure the ceasefire he said
he had wanted, Trump said in an interview with Fox News' Sean
Hannity that he and Putin had discussed land transfers and
security guarantees for Ukraine, and had "largely agreed".
"I think we're pretty close to a deal," he said, adding:
"Ukraine has to agree to it. Maybe they'll say 'no'."
The two sources, who requested anonymity to discuss
sensitive matters, said their knowledge of Putin's proposals was
mostly based on discussions between leaders in Europe, the U.S.
and Ukraine, and noted it was not complete.
Trump briefed Zelenskiy and European leaders on his summit
discussions early on Saturday.
It was not immediately clear if the proposals by Putin were
an opening gambit to serve as a starting point for negotiations
or more like a final offer that was not subject to discussion.
UKRAINIAN LAND FOR PEACE
At face value, at least some of the demands would present
huge challenges for Ukraine's leadership to accept.
Putin's offer ruled out a ceasefire until a comprehensive
deal is reached, blocking a key demand of Zelenskiy, whose
country is hit daily by Russian drones and ballistic missiles.
Under the proposed Russian deal, Kyiv would fully withdraw
from the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions in return for a
Russian pledge to freeze the front lines in the southern regions
of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, the sources said.
Ukraine has already rejected any retreat from Ukrainian land
such as the Donetsk region, where its troops are dug in and
which Kyiv says serves as a crucial defensive structure to
prevent Russian attacks deeper into its territory.
Russia would be prepared to return comparatively small
tracts of Ukrainian land it has occupied in the northern Sumy
and northeastern Kharkiv regions, the sources said.
Russia holds pockets of the Sumy and Kharkiv regions that
total around 440 square km, according to Ukraine's Deep State
battlefield mapping project. Ukraine controls around 6,600
square km of Donbas, which comprises the Donetsk and Luhansk
regions and is claimed by Russia.
Although the Americans have not spelled this out, the
sources said they knew Russia's leader was also seeking - at the
very least - formal recognition of Russian sovereignty over
Crimea, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014.
It was not clear if that meant recognition by the U.S.
government or, for instance, all Western powers and Ukraine.
Kyiv and its European allies reject formal recognition of
Moscow's rule in the peninsula.
They said Putin would also expect the lifting of at least
some of the array of sanctions on Russia. However, they could
not say if this applied to U.S. as well as European sanctions.
Trump said on Friday he did not immediately need to consider
retaliatory tariffs on countries such as China for buying
Russian oil - which is subject to a range of Western sanctions -
but might have to "in two or three weeks."
Ukraine would also be barred from joining the NATO military
alliance, though Putin seemed to be open to Ukraine receiving
some kind of security guarantees, the sources said.
However, they added that it was unclear what this meant in
practice. European leaders said Trump had discussed security
guarantees for Ukraine during their conversation on Saturday and
also broached an idea for an "Article 5"-style guarantee outside
the NATO military alliance.
NATO regards any attack launched on one of its 32 members as
an attack on all under its Article 5 clause.
Joining the Atlantic alliance is a strategic objective for
Kyiv that is enshrined in the country's constitution.
Russia would also demand official status for the Russian
language inside parts of, or across, Ukraine, as well as the
right of the Russian Orthodox Church to operate freely, the
sources said.
Ukraine's security agency accuses the Moscow-linked church
of abetting Russia's war on Ukraine by spreading pro-Russian
propaganda and housing spies, something denied by the church
which says it has cut canonical ties with Moscow.
Ukraine has passed a law banning Russia-linked religious
organisations, of which it considers the church to be one.
However, it has not yet started enforcing the ban.
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