US and Russia plan truce to cement Putin's gains in Ukraine

Miami Herald

11 hours ago

Washington and Moscow are aiming to reach a deal to halt the war in Ukraine that would lock in Russia's occupation of territory seized during its military invasion, according to people familiar with the matter.
U.S. and Russian officials are working toward an agreement on territories for a planned summit meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as early as next week, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. The U.S. is working to get buy-in from Ukraine and its European allies on the deal, which is far from certain, the people said.
Putin is demanding that Ukraine cede its entire eastern Donbas area to Russia as well as Crimea, which his forces illegally annexed in 2014. That would require Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to order a withdrawal of troops from parts of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions still held by Kyiv, handing Russia a victory that its army couldn't achieve militarily since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Such an outcome would represent a major win for Putin, who has long sought direct negotiations with the U.S. on terms for ending the war that he started, sidelining Ukraine and its European allies. Zelenskyy risks being presented with a take-it-or-leave-it deal to accept the loss of Ukrainian territory, while Europe fears it would be left to monitor a ceasefire as Putin rebuilds his forces.
U.S. Treasury yields retreated slightly from near session highs as the report sparked a drop in oil prices, including a decline of as much as 1.7% in U.S. benchmark WTI crude futures. Ukraine bonds jumped and Hungary's forint hit its highest level against the euro in almost a year.
Under the terms of the deal that officials are discussing, Russia would halt its offensive in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine along the current battlelines, the people said. They cautioned that the terms and plans of the accord were still in flux and could still change.
It's unclear if Moscow is prepared to give up any land that it currently occupies, which includes the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe.
The White House didn't reply to a request to comment. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov didn't immediately respond to a request to comment. Ukraine declined to comment on the proposals.
The agreement aims essentially to freeze the war and pave the way for a ceasefire and technical talks on a definitive peace settlement, the people said. The U.S. had earlier been pushing for Russia to agree first to an unconditional ceasefire to create space for negotiations on ending the war that's now in its fourth year.
Putin on Friday held phone calls with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as with the leaders of South Africa, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Belarus to share details of his Aug. 6 meeting with Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff in Moscow, according to the Kremlin.
Having returned to the White House in January on a pledge to rapidly resolve Europe's worst conflict since World War II, Trump has expressed increasing frustration with Putin's refusal to agree to a ceasefire. The two leaders held six phone calls since February and Witkoff met with Putin five times in Russia to try to broker an agreement.
Alongside those discussions, Ukraine was seeking security guarantees to ensure any truce holds and urging allies to keep Russia's economy under pressure through sanctions.
Trump hasn't implemented any direct measures against Moscow so far, though he doubled tariffs on Indian goods to 50% this week for its purchases of Russian oil, sparking outrage in New Delhi. He has demanded that Putin agree to a ceasefire by Friday or the U.S. would act to impose tariffs on countries buying Russian oil to ramp up economic pressure on Moscow.
Putin has repeatedly insisted that his war goals remain unchanged. They include demands for Kyiv to accept neutral status and abandon its ambition of NATO membership, and to accept the loss of Crimea and the other four eastern and southern Ukrainian regions to Russia.
Parts of Donetsk and Luhansk have been under Russian occupation since 2014, when the Kremlin incited separatist violence shortly after the operation to seize Crimea. Putin declared the four Ukrainian regions to be "forever" part of Russia after announcing that he was annexing them in September 2022, even as his forces have never fully controlled those territories.
Ukraine cannot constitutionally cede territory and it has said it won't recognize Russian occupation and annexation of its land.
It's still unclear if Putin would agree to take part in a trilateral meeting with Trump and Zelenskyy next week, even if he had already struck an agreement with the U.S. president, the people added. The Russian leader told reporters on Thursday that he didn't object to meeting Zelenskyy under the right conditions, though he said they don't exist now.
Multiple officials, including in the U.S., have expressed skepticism over Putin's willingness to call a halt to the war and whether he's genuinely interested in a peace deal that would fall short of his stated goals in Ukraine, according to the people.
Trump said on Thursday that he'd be willing to meet with Putin, even if the Russian leader hadn't agreed to also sit down with Zelenskyy, apparently overriding earlier suggestions of a trilateral meeting.
"I don't like long waits," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. "They would like to meet with me and I will do whatever I can to stop the killing."
Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said Thursday that Russian and U.S. officials are finalizing details for a meeting within the next few days and that they have agreed on a venue, which he didn't name.
The U.S. had previously offered to recognize Crimea as Russian as part of any deal to halt the war, and to effectively cede Russian control of parts of other Ukrainian regions. As part of those earlier proposals, control over areas of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson would be returned to Ukraine.
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-With assistance from Elizabeth Stanton, Andras Gergely and Selcuk Gokoluk.
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