Trump may be open to Putin taking Ukraine’s Donbas in exchange for frozen frontlines

This information was conveyed to journalists from the Republican-leaning American television channel Fox News by an unnamed European diplomat.

In exchange for the transfer of the entire Donbas territory — both occupied and unoccupied — the Russian leader is reportedly willing to “freeze” the front lines elsewhere and reach an agreement with Ukraine.

“Donbas had a pre-war population of around 6.5 million and includes the Luhansk and Donetsk regions,” Fox News explains.

After a personal meeting with Putin at Elmendorf-Richardson Air Force Base in Anchorage, Alaska, Trump told European allies that “the Russian president reiterated that he wants to get the key Luhansk and Donetsk regions, but that he seems open to the possibility of breaking the deadlock in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson along with a ‘freeze’ on the front lines,” the TV channel reports.

According to Reuters, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also participated in the same phone conversation following the summit in Alaska, once again categorically rejecting the possibility of transferring the Donetsk and Luhansk regions to Putin.

Fox News also recalls the position of the Ukrainian head of state in this matter, emphasizing that Zelenskyy “has refused to withdraw from the remaining 30% of Donetsk that Ukraine still controls.” “He has said that doing so would be unconstitutional, and the territory could be used as a staging ground for later Russian attacks,” the journalists conclude.

• On Monday, August 18, Zelenskyy is scheduled to meet with Trump at the White House, where they will discuss these and other parts of Putin's plan.
• The Russian leader also demands a reduction of the Ukrainian army, Ukraine’s renunciation of European integration, official status for the Russian language, broad rights for the Russian Orthodox Church, and other measures that Moscow has officially stated over the past three years as “the goals of the special military operation.”