Russia and the United States are discussing Moscow's control over the territories lost by Ukraine on the model of the West Bank of the Jordan River - part of Palestine, The Times reports. In this case, the lost territories would be under military-political and economic control of Russia.
According to a source of the newspaper close to the US National Security Council, this idea was discussed a few weeks ago during negotiations between the special envoy of the US President Steve Witkoff and the Russian leadership.
Witkoff, as the publication writes, supports it. According to Washington, this would allow to bypass the Constitution of Ukraine and cede territories without holding a referendum. Although Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky refuses to recognize the lost territories as Russian, such a model could help achieve a ceasefire, the Times notes.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly called the Times report "completely false".
Last week, US President Donald Trump said that Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky would have to "sign something". He claimed that the peace agreement would include "some land swap". "There will be a land swap for Ukraine. But there will be bad things for both sides. We will change the front lines," Trump said.
As The Wall Street Journal reported after Witkoff's trip to Moscow last week and his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the latter delivered a "large-scale proposal" through his ambassador for a ceasefire in Ukraine.
According to the newspaper, it talks about Kiev giving up Donbas in exchange for a ceasefire. Later, Axios reported that Witkoff, telling European leaders about the meeting with Putin, said that Moscow would agree to a ceasefire if Kiev cedes the DPR and LPR, as well as Crimea.
Later, the ambassador told senior European and Ukrainian officials that Putin agreed to "freeze" the current positions of Russian troops in the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions.
Russia insists on international recognition of Crimea, the DPR, LPR, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions and the complete withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the latter four regions. Moscow rules out the possibility of territorial concessions to Kiev.
On August 1, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow's conditions for resolving the conflict had not changed since last summer. In June 2024, Putin listed a number of conditions for peace talks, including the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the territory of the Donbass republics, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions, as well as recognition of them and Crimea as part of Russia.
Palestine consists of two parts - the Gaza Strip and the West Bank of the Jordan River, separated by the territory of Israel and without common borders. The de facto state of Palestine exists in the form of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), which has limited internal autonomy and controls only part of the West Bank. Israel controls part of the territory of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the land borders, territorial waters and airspace of the country, Palestine does not have its own official armed forces (their functions are performed by the police), currency and issuing center (the Israeli shekel and the Jordanian dinar are in circulation, the US dollar is widely used).
After the conclusion of the Oslo Accords in 1993-1995, a three-tier control was established in the West Bank, in which the PNA controls about 40% of the territory, and the Israeli authorities - 60%.
In 2013, Mahmoud Abbas issued a decree that replaced the wording "PNA" with "State of Palestine", and he himself became the president of this state.