Plans for a meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Budapest have raised hopes for peace, but also concerns about a new distribution of power in Europe. The proposed ideas for ending the war involve painful compromises for Ukraine and test the foundations of NATO and Western unity.
Russia controls more than 116,000 square kilometers - or more than 19% of Ukraine's territory - an area slightly less than half the size of the United Kingdom, according to Russian military figures.
Moscow says Crimea (annexed in 2014), Donetsk and Luhansk regions - together known as Donbass, and Zaporizhia and Kherson regions - are now legitimate parts of the Russian Federation.
Three sources familiar with Kremlin thinking said that after the August meeting between Putin and Trump, the Russian leader insisted that Ukrainian forces withdraw from the territory in Donetsk region they still control - about 20%, or roughly 5,300 square kilometers.
That is less than his initial request in 2024, when Moscow demanded that Kiev give up all of Donbas, as well as the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions - a total of almost 20,000 sq km.
Crimea, handed over to Ukraine in 1954 by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, is recognized as part of Russia only by Syria, North Korea and Nicaragua. Putin accuses Western countries of double standards, since they recognized Kosovo as an independent state in 2008 - despite the objections of Russia and Serbia.
What is expected of NATO?
One of Putin's main conditions for ending the war is a written promise from Western leaders that NATO will not expand further east.
At the 2008 Bucharest summit, NATO leaders agreed that Ukraine and Georgia would one day become members. In 2019, Ukraine even amended its constitution to state that the country aspires to full membership in NATO and the EU.
Trump has already stated that US support for Ukrainian NATO membership was one of the reasons for the war, and has made it clear that Ukraine will not become a member.
Russia is pushing for a written agreement on NATO, as Putin believes that Moscow was misled by the US after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, when then-Secretary of State James Baker assured Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO "would not expand eastward."
NATO, however, claims that each country decides for itself whether to join the alliance.
Russia has repeatedly proposed a new security architecture in Europe, expressing dissatisfaction with NATO's dominance of the continent since the Cold War. European diplomats have rejected these proposals, calling them a continuation of two centuries of Russian attempts to influence European affairs.
What would Ukraine’s security guarantees look like?
Ukraine has been demanding guarantees that it will not be attacked again, but the West fears committing to something that could drag it into a future war with Russia, the country with the world’s largest nuclear arsenal.
During talks in Istanbul in April 2022, the two sides almost reached a draft agreement under which Ukraine would accept permanent neutral status in exchange for international security guarantees from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.
Moscow has cited this model as a possible basis for a future agreement.
Kiev and its European allies, however, say that Russia is not trustworthy. guarantor.
Russia also insists on restrictions on the Ukrainian armed forces and on the protection of the Russian-speaking population and believers belonging to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, until recently part of the Moscow Patriarchate.
Trade prospects and frozen assets
After his conversation with Putin on Thursday, Trump mentioned the possibility of resuming trade between the United States and Russia if peace is achieved.
Many in Washington are concerned about the "partnership without limits" between Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping and suggest seeking rapprochement between Moscow and Washington.
Of particular importance to Russia would be the restoration of access to the dollar in international payments and the reopening of Western financial institutions to Russian capital.
European countries are considering how to use some 210 billion euros of frozen Russian state assets for the defense and reconstruction of Ukraine.
Moscow, for its part, argues that seizing these funds would be theft that would undermine confidence in the euro as a reserve currency and trigger years of lawsuits and retaliation. Russia has proposed using some of the money to restore Ukrainian territories it controls.
The Children
US First Lady Melania Trump said she was able to establish direct communication with Putin regarding the repatriation of Ukrainian children who fell under Russian control during the war.