
Vladimir Putin is demanding that Ukraine give up the entire eastern Donbas region, give up ambitions to join NATO, remain neutral and keep Western troops out of the country, three sources familiar with the Kremlin's demands told Reuters.
The Russian president met with Donald Trump in Alaska on Friday for the first Russia-US summit in more than four years and spent almost the entire three-hour closed-door meeting discussing what a compromise on Ukraine might look like, according to Reuters sources who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive issues.
Speaking next to Trump, Putin said the meeting hopefully paves the way for peace in Ukraine, but neither leader gave specific details about what they discussed.
In the most detailed Russian reporting to date on Putin's offer to the summit, Reuters was able to outline the contours of what the Kremlin would like to see in a possible peace deal to end a war that has killed and injured hundreds of thousands of people.
Basically, Russian sources said, Putin has compromised on the territorial demands he submitted in June 2024, which required Kiev to cede all four provinces that Moscow claims as part of Russia: Dontesk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, which make up Donbas, plus Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south.
Kiev rejected these conditions as equivalent to surrender.
In his new proposal, the Russian president has stuck to his demand that Ukraine completely withdraw from the parts of Donbas it still controls, according to three sources. In return, however, Moscow would ban the current front lines in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, they added.
Russia controls about 88% of Donbas and 73% of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, according to US estimates and data from open sources.
Moscow is also willing to hand over small parts of Ukraine's Kharkiv, Sumy and Dnipropetrovsk regions it controls as part of a possible deal, the sources said.
Putin is also sticking to his previous demands that Ukraine give up its ambitions for NATO and for a legally binding promise by the US-led military alliance that it will not expand further east, as well as for restrictions on the Ukrainian military and an agreement that no Western troops will be deployed on the ground in Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping force, the sources said.