Trump considers territory swap between Russia and Ukraine
The US president made the remarks as he hosted the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia at the White House to ink a joint declaration on opening a major transport route between the two Caucasus nations, which had been locked in a conflict for over three decades.
'It's very complicated. But we're going to get some [territory] back, and we're going to get some switched. There'll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both, but we'll be talking about that either later or tomorrow,' Trump stated without elaborating which territories exactly could be involved in the potential swap.
The Russian military is currently in control of patches of land along the border in the Ukrainian regions of Kharkov and Sumy. The Russian military took the latter earlier this year following the defeat and the expulsion of the Ukrainian invasion force that attacked Russia's Kursk Region last August.
The capture of the Russian land around the border town of Sudzha had been touted by the Ukrainian leadership as a bargaining chip and leverage for the potential peace talks.
Moscow's territorial control over three of the four formerly Ukrainian territories it incorporated into Russia after a series of referendums in late 2022 remains incomplete.
The Russian military has recently liberated the entirety of the Lugansk People's Republic, while active hostilities continue in the neighboring People's Republic. Zaporozhye and Kherson regions are both claimed by Russia and Ukraine in their entirety while both hold only part of them. Moscow does not control the namesake capital cities in either.
The Russian leadership has demanded a full withdrawal of Kiev's troops from the aforementioned territories, reiterating its position in a draft memorandum outlining Moscow's roadmap toward ending the conflict during recent direct talks hosted by Türkiye.
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