US and Russia ‘propose West Bank-style occupation of Ukraine'
Under this scenario Russia would have military and economic control of occupied Ukraine under its own governing body, imitating Israel's de facto rule of Palestinian territory seized from Jordan in 1967.
The idea was raised weeks ago in discussions between Steve Witkoff, President Trump's peace envoy, and his Russian counterparts, according to a source close to the US national security council.
Witkoff, who is also tasked by Trump with bringing peace to the Middle East, is understood to support the idea, which the Americans believe circumvents barriers in the Ukrainian constitution to ceding territory without holding an 'all-Ukraine' referendum.
President Zelensky has refused to countenance handing over land but the occupation model may be a mechanism to allow for a truce after three and a half years of war.
Under the model, Ukraine's borders would not change, just as the borders of the West Bank have gone unchanged for 58 years, only under Israeli control.
'It'll just be like Israel occupies the West Bank,' the source said before Trump's summit with President Putin in Alaska on Friday. 'With a governor, with an economic situation that goes into Russia, not Ukraine. But it'll still be Ukraine, because … Ukraine will never give up its sovereignty. But the reality is it'll be occupied territory and the model is Palestine.'
Anna Kelly, the deputy White House press secretary, said: 'This is total fake news and sloppy reporting by The Times, who clearly has terrible sources. Nothing of the sort was discussed with anyone at any point.'
Zelensky in the Kharkiv region this month
UKRAINIAN PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SERVICE/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Israel's occupation has been ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice, which is not recognised by the US and only partially accepted by Russia. In March 2022 the court ordered Russia to 'immediately suspend military operations' in Ukraine, by a vote of 13 to two in which Russian and Chinese judges were opposed. The order is binding on Russia but the court has no means of enforcing it.
The United Nations has ordered Israel to end its occupation, most recently in a vote of the general assembly last September by 124 nations to 14, with 43 abstentions.
The resolution called for Israel to comply with international law within 12 months and withdraw its military forces, immediately cease all new settlement activity, evacuate all settlers from occupied land and dismantle parts of the separation wall it constructed inside the occupied West Bank. Israel, which voted against the measure along with the US, has ignored the resolution. Britain abstained.
This outcome for Ukraine's occupied territories is seen by some US negotiators as simply reflecting the reality of the war and the refusal by all other nations to become directly involved in fighting Russia. In this view, all that remains is to establish the exact boundaries of Russian occupation, which Putin is seeking to push as far as possible before his talks with Trump in Alaska.
The scenario would reflect the world view expressed by Sebastian Gorka, Trump's senior director for counterterrorism, during an interview in May.
'We live in the real world. The Trump administration lives in the real world,' Gorka told Politico. 'We recognise the reality on the ground. Number one, that's the beginning because we're not utopianists and we're not human engineers. We're not some kind of pie in the sky believers in utopia.
'We recognise the reality on the ground and we have one priority above all else, whether it's the Middle East or whether it's Ukraine. It's to stop the bloodshed. Everything else comes after the bloodshed has been halted.'
Israeli troops captured the West Bank — land between Israel and the River Jordan — from Jordanian forces during the 1967 Six Day War, putting millions of its Palestinian residents under Israeli control.
JAAFAR ASHTIYEH/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
AMAER SHALLODI/GETTY IMAGES
Today it maintains overall control of the territory, although since the 1990s a Palestinian government known as the Palestinian Authority has run most of its towns and cities.
Palestinians are subject to Israeli military checkpoints and patrols, and are required to obtain permits from Israel to travel between the West Bank and other Palestinian territories in Gaza and East Jerusalem.
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The occupation has been widely criticised for land seizures and the establishment of more than 150 settlements in breach of a UN security council resolution and international law. Israel has also imposed a two-tier system of citizenship: Israeli civilians living or passing through the West Bank are subject to Israeli law while Palestinian civilians are subject to martial law and cannot vote in Israel's national elections.
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