Trump suggests a ‘land swap' between Russia and Ukraine: Which areas could change hands?

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US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are set to meet in Alaska on Friday (August 15). Trump has repeatedly focussed on Moscow and Kyiv 'swapping land' as way to end the Ukraine war. But what does this mean exactly? What do we know about the plan? read more
(File) US President Donald Trump has repeatedly focussed on 'land swapping' as a way to end the Ukraine war.. AFP
US President Donald Trump has reiterated that he will offer Russian President Vladimir Putin a land swap to end the Ukraine War.
Trump and Putin are set to meet in Alaska on Friday (August 15) in a development some Russian nationalists have hailed. Russia famously sold the territory to the United States for $7.2 million in 1867.
Trump is said to have been invited to a follow up meeting in Russia. The US president repeatedly focussed on 'land swapping' as a way to end the Ukraine war.
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The development comes in the backdrop of German leader Friedrich Merz set to hold a virtual summit for Trump, US Vice President JD Vance, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders.
But what did Trump say? What do we know about the plan?
Let's take a closer look:
What did Trump say?
Trump said the United States would try and get Ukraine some of its land back.
"Russia's occupied a big portion of Ukraine. They occupied prime territory. We're going to try to get some of that territory back for Ukraine," he said at the White House.
Trump, not for the first time, said there would be 'some swapping, changes in land'.
Trump said he would let European leaders know if Putin offers a fair deal. He said he would reach out to Zelenskyy first 'out of respect'.
'I'm not going to make a deal. It's not up to me to make a deal,' Trump said. 'If it's a fair deal, I will reveal it to the European Union leaders and to the NATO leaders and also to President Zelenskyy,' Trump said. 'I may say, 'lots of luck, keep fighting,' or I may say we can make a deal.'
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Trump said he would be able to tell within two minutes if Putin was serious. 'I believe [Putin] wants to get it over,' Trump said. 'Now, I've said that a few times, and I've been disappointed.' Trump has threatened to impose sanctions on Russia if it refuses to end the Ukraine War.
He also described it as a 'feeling out' meeting – alluding to the fact that the two men would likely meet again in Russia, with Zelenskyy possibly even joining them. 'I will put the two of them in a room,' he said. 'I think it will get solved.'
Trump reiterated the claim that the war would have never happened if he had been president. 'I'm going in to speak to Vladimir Putin, and I'm going to be telling him, 'you've got to end this war. You've got to end it,'' Trump said. 'He wasn't going to mess with me. This war would have never happened.'
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US President Donald Trump and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's meeting in the Oval Office of the White House was widely seen as an ambush. File image/AFP
Trump said that while he and Zelenskyy 'get along', he 'very severely disagrees with what [the Ukrainian president] has done'. Trump said he was a little bothered by the fact that Zelenskyy said he had no authority to cede any of Ukraine's territory to Russia.
'He's got approval to go into a war and kill everybody, but he needs approval to do a land swap? Because there'll be some landswapping going on. I know that through Russia and through conversations with everybody,' Trump said.
'It's very complex, because you have lines that are very uneven,' Trump said. 'There will be some swapping. There will be some changes in land, and the word that they will use is, they make changes. We're going to change the lines, the battlelines.'
Trump last week said 'some swapping of territories' would occur. 'We're looking at swapping. We're going to get some back,' he said.
Zelenskyy on social media the next day said there would be no handing over of territory to Russia.
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'The answer to the Ukrainian territorial question already is in the Constitution of Ukraine. No one will deviate from this—and no one will be able to. Ukrainians will not gift their land to the occupier," he wrote.
Trump has repeatedly blamed Zelenskyy, with whom he had a disastrous meeting in the Oval Office earlier this year, for Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Russia currently holds around a fifth of Ukraine. This includes the entire Luhansk, a lot of Donetsk, large chunks of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia and small tiny parts of the Kharkiv and northern Sumy.
US Vice President J Dance, who was also present at the meeting, accused Zelenskyy of not being sufficiently grateful to the US. The meeting, which was held in front of the press, was widely seen as an ambush.
What do we know about the plan?
The White House is reportedly trying to convince European leaders to accept Russia taking over the Donbas region in Eastern Ukraine. Russia also wants to keep Crimea, which it invaded in 2014 under the US President Barack Obama.
There are reports that Russia will give up its claim to Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, areas which it has partially occupied. There are reports that Putin had proposed this deal to Trump envoy Steve Witkoff during their meeting last week.
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Moscow essentially wants to tighten its grip over Donetsk and Luhansk – the industrial heartland of Ukraine and a region rich in resources. There are also reports that Ukraine under such a proposal would leave Donetsk and Russia would halt its advances in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
This would essentially allow Putin to declare victory. Ukraine, under such a deal, would gain precisely nothing as it has never lay claim to any of Russia's territories.
European leaders of the weekend have already pushed back against such a deal. They released a joint statement insisting that Ukraine must be a part of any peace talks.
The deal the White House is pushing would essentially allow Russian President Vladimir Putin to declare victory.
'The path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine. We remain committed to the principle that international borders must not be changed by force. The current line of contact should be the starting point of negotiations', the leaders of France, Germany, Poland, UK, Italy, Finland and the European Commission said in the joint statement.
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Putin, an ex-KGB agent, has made no secret of the fact that he wants to reconstitute the Soviet Union. He previously called the fall of the empire the greatest tragedy of the 20th Century.
Experts say Ukraine will likely not go along with any deal reached by Putin and Trump. As Kaja Kallas, vice-president of the European Commission, told the BBC, 'If Ukraine is not part of the deal, any deal will just not be implemented and that is the reason why Ukraine needs to be around that table'.
Kallas said she hopes Zelensky will be invited to the meeting. She added that Putin is playing the long game. Kallas said Putin wants to 'go for the old fashioned way of…let's divide the territories and spheres of influence'.
Interestingly, Trump has also mused about reaching a similar grand bargain with Russia and China – dividing up the world into their relative spheres of influence and vowing not to interfere or encroach on each other's regions.
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Peter Watkins, an associate fellow at Chatham House, a London-based think tank, told NBC News he is sceptical that anything will be achieved.
'The underlying issues have not changed,' he said. 'For Russia, this isn't just about territory. It's about controlling Ukraine as a whole.'
He said that while Trump would like to get something out of the talks, it is likely to be just a small step forward rather than an agreement.
The Trump administration has previously said that Ukraine's goal of getting back its land from Russia is unrealistic.
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said, 'We must start by recognising that returning to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective. Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering". Zelenskyy has described any deal that does not involve Ukraine as a 'dead' one.
With inputs from agencies