Putin open to Trump talks but stands firm on territorial demands

Donald Trump returns to the White House, having previously claimed multiple times that he would be able to end the war in Ukraine very quickly. As Reuters points out, Moscow currently controls a part of Ukraine approximately the size of the American state of Virginia (about 110,000 square kilometres) and is advancing at the fastest pace since the start of the invasion.

Sources connected to the Kremlin informed Reuters that the Russian leader is ready to discuss a ceasefire in Ukraine with Donald Trump. According to their statements, Putin, however, demands that Kyiv abandon ambitions related to joining NATO and rules out any significant territorial concessions.

Russian officials, requesting anonymity, conveyed that the Kremlin could essentially agree to freeze the conflict along the front line. There is said to be room for negotiation about the precise division of the four eastern regions—Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson. Earlier, in September 2022, Vladimir Putin announced the illegal annexation—officially incorporating the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, as well as the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, into Russia, citing a conducted referendum.

Two officials also claim that Russia may be open to withdrawing from relatively small patches of territory it holds in the Kharkiv and Mykolaiv regions, in the north and south of Ukraine.

The agency's sources emphasised that the decision by Joe Biden's administration to give Ukraine the green light to strike deep into Russia could complicate and delay any agreement. If no agreement on a ceasefire is reached, Russia will continue to fight.

- Putin has already said that freezing the conflict will not work in any way, - Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov earlier informed the agency. - And the missile authorisation is a very dangerous escalation on the part of the United States