The day after the summit between Putin and Trump, the American president would support a proposal from Russia who wishes to take total control of two Ukrainian regions.
President Donald Trump supports a proposal from Russia who wishes to take total control of two Ukrainian regions and freeze the front in two other regions that Moscow only partially controlled, a source of the subject said to the subject on Saturday 16 August.
This source, which required anonymity, explained that Russian president Vladimir Putin “asks in fact that Ukraine leaves the Donbass”, a territory bringing together the regions of Donetsk and Lougansk in eastern Ukraine. “Trump is inclined to support this,” added the same source.
Donald Trump met this Saturday by phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders about his discussions on Friday with Vladimir Putin.
“The Ukrainian President refused to abandon the Donbass,” said the source of the subject. Volodymyr Zelensky rejected any territorial concession, saying having their hands bound by the Ukrainian Constitution. But he did not exclude discussing the subject during a trilateral meeting with Trump and Putin.
Putin ready “to freeze the rest of the front” if “the main requests are accepted”
The American daily New York Times also cited two senior European officials who claim that Donald Trump supports a plan by Vladimir Putin “to end the war in Ukraine by giving up territories that remain to be conquered in the Russian invaders, rather than trying a cease-fire”.
According to the British daily Financial Times, Vladimir Putin told Donald Trump that he was ready to “freeze the rest of the front if his main requests are accepted”. This message was directly relayed by Donald Trump during his phone call on Saturday morning with Voldymyr Zelensky and European leaders, specifies the Financial Times.
According to the source that spoke to AFP, US officials have indicated that if Russian requests are accepted, “Putin will not continue the offensive in the (Ukrainian) regions of Kherson and Zaporijia (South), so there would be a kind of frost there”.
“But in fact, everything will depend on Putin’s word of honor,” said the same source.
A few months after launching its invasion of Ukraine, Russia had proclaimed in September 2022 the annexation of the four aforementioned Ukrainian regions, even if its troops still control no entirely.
The Russian forces today occupy almost all of the Lougansk region and a large part of the Donetsk region, including their regional capitals.
This is not the case with the regions of Zaporijjia and Kherson, whose main urban centers are still under Ukrainian control. In 2014, Russia had already annexed the Ukrainian Crimea peninsula.
