Vladimir Putin has said he is willing to negotiate with US President-elect Donald Trump on a possible end to the war in Ukraine. However, according to five sources familiar with the Kremlin's position, his terms remain extremely favorable to Russia and difficult for Ukraine.
As Reuters notes, Trump, who has vowed to quickly end the war, returns to the White House at a time when Russia's position is strengthening. The Russian army is advancing at the fastest pace since the first days of the 2022 invasion.
In the first detailed report on what President Putin would agree to in any deal brokered by Trump, five current and former Russian officials said the Kremlin could broadly agree to a “freeze” of the war on the front lines.
According to the agency's three interlocutors, there may be an opportunity for negotiations on the exact division of the four eastern regions - Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson.
Although Moscow claims that these four regions are fully part of Russia and protected by the country's nuclear umbrella, its forces on the ground control 70-80% of the territory, and about 26,000 sq. km are still held by Ukrainian troops.
Russia may also be willing to withdraw from relatively small swaths of territory it holds in the Kharkiv and Mykolaiv regions, in northern and southern Ukraine, according to two officials.
Putin said this month that any ceasefire agreement must reflect “reality” on the ground, but he “feared a short-term truce that would only allow the West to rearm Ukraine,” Reuters writes.
