During the meeting in Alaska, Russian President Vladimir Putin presented US President Donald Trump with the Kremlin's proposals for settling the war in Ukraine.
The “Reuters“ agency reported what Moscow's conditions are. Some of them are related to positions on the front, while others - to the Russian language and the sanctions imposed on Russia after the invasion.
Putin's main demand is that the Ukrainian army withdraw its troops from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions (Donbas). Ukraine must give up joining NATO, but will receive “security guarantees“ outside the alliance.
Putin wants Kiev to recognize Crimea as Russian, and for the Russian language and the Russian Orthodox Church to be given official status. Putin also wants some of the sanctions against the Russian Federation to be lifted (he did not specify which ones). Russia will freeze the front line in the south (Kherson and Zaporizhia) and give up small territories it occupies in the northern Sumy and Kharkiv regions.
Now Trump will put the ball in Kiev's court. President Volodymyr Zelensky will travel to Washington on Monday for talks with Trump.
Kiev has already rejected any territorial concessions, especially in the Donetsk region, which is considered a key defensive line. European leaders also noted that the official recognition of Crimea as Russian and concessions on the Donbas issue are unacceptable.
The talks between Russia and the United States in Alaska were substantive and brought the parties closer to making the necessary decisions, Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday, quoted by TASS.
"The conversation was very frank, substantive, and in my opinion, this brings us closer to the necessary decisions," the head of state said at a meeting in the Kremlin dedicated to the results of yesterday's talks in Anchorage. "We haven't held negotiations of this kind at this level for a long time," Putin noted. "There was an opportunity to calmly and in detail present" the Russian position, he added.
"We discussed practically all aspects of our cooperation, but first of all, of course, we talked about the possible resolution of the Ukrainian crisis on a fair basis," the Russian head of state specified yesterday.