He is open to discussing a ceasefire deal with him in , but rules out major territorial concessions and insists that Kiev should abandon its ambitions to join NATO, five sources with knowledge of the Kremlin’s thinking told Reuters.
The US president-elect, who has vowed to quickly end the conflict, is returning to the White House at a time when he appears strengthened. Moscow controls a chunk of Ukraine roughly the size of the US state of Virginia and is advancing at its fastest pace since the early days of the 2022 invasion.
What Moscow is reportedly asking for
In the first detailed account of what President Putin would accept in any deal brokered by Trump, the five current and former Russian officials said the Kremlin could broadly agree to freeze conflict along the front lines.
There may be room for negotiation over the exact division of the four eastern regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson, according to three sources who asked not to be named.
While Moscow claims the four regions are entirely part of Russia, defended by the country’s nuclear umbrella, its forces on the ground control 70-80% of the territory, with about 26,000 square kilometers still under occupation. of Ukrainian troops, according to open source data from the front line.
Russia may also be open to withdrawing from the relatively small pieces of territory it holds in the Kharkiv and Mykolaiv regions in northern and southern Ukraine, two of the officials said.
Putin said this month that any ceasefire deal would have to reflect “realities” on the ground, but that he feared a short-lived truce that would only allow the West to rearm Ukraine.
“If there is no neutrality, it is difficult to imagine the existence of good neighborly relations between Russia and Ukraine,” Putin told the Valdai discussion group on November 7.
“Why; Because this would mean that Ukraine will be continuously used as a tool in the wrong hands and to the detriment of the interests of the Russian Federation.”
Two of the sources said it would allow Ukraine to launch US ATACMS missiles deep into Russia – and toughen Moscow’s demands as hardliners push for a bigger piece of Ukraine.
On Tuesday, Kiev used the missiles to strike Russian territory for the first time, according to Moscow, which denounced the move as a major escalation. If a ceasefire is not agreed, the two sources said, then Russia will continue to fight.
“Putin has already said that freezing the conflict will not work in any way,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Reuters hours before the Russians reported the ATACMS strikes. “And authorizing the missiles is a very dangerous escalation on the part of the United States.”
Ukraine’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Reuters report.
