The Trump administration has insisted Ukraine will have to make 'territorial concessions' to end the conflict
Donald Trump has said he plans to talk about land and “power plants” during a phone call with Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, as he seeks to win the Kremlin’s support for a 30-day ceasefire proposal accepted by Ukraine last week.
“We want to see if we can bring that war to an end,” the US President said.
“Maybe we can, maybe we can’t, but I think we have a very good chance.”
Asked what concessions are being considered to achieve a ceasefire, he said: “We’ll be talking about land. We’ll be talking about power plants … We’re already talking about that, dividing up certain assets.”
While Trump did not elaborate on which assets are up for discussion, he is believed to be referring to the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia facility in Ukraine – Europe’s largest nuclear plant.
Last week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio reiterated Trump’s suggestion that Ukraine will have to “make concessions“, including relinquishing territory captured by Russia since 2014, to end the conflict.
“The Russians can’t conquer all of Ukraine, and obviously it’ll be very difficult for Ukraine in any reasonable time period to sort of force the Russians back all the way to where they were in 2014,” Rubio said.
Meanwhile, senior Kremlin officials, including Putin, have repeatedly demanded that Ukraine surrender the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions, including areas which have not been occupied by Russian forces.
Here, The i Paper maps out the Ukrainian regions currently held by Russia – and the areas that could be relinquished under a US-brokered ceasefire deal.
Territory held by Russia and Ukraine
More than three years on from its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia still occupies roughly 20 per cent of the country, gaining over four thousand square kilometers of territory in 2024 alone.
Over the weekend, Russian forces occupied territory in southern Ukraine and broke through part of the Ukrainian lines southeast of the city of Zaporizhzhia.
Zaporizhzhia is located approximately 130 kilometres (80 miles) north-east of the eponymous power plant, which is occupied by Russian forces and expected to be a crucial talking point during Trump and Putin’s phone call on Tuesday.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said in a statement on Monday that its forces had taken the village of Stepove, roughly 50 km from Zaporizhzhia.
According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Russian troops were just across the Dnipro River from Kherson city on Sunday, around 25km from Zaporizhzhia city and 30km from Kharkiv.
Russian forces were reportedly just across the Dnipro River from Kherson city on Sunday
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine on the reports.
An expert told The i Paper that Russian troops could use a temporary ceasefire to prepare for the extremely difficult task of crossing the Dnipro River undisturbed.
“It is absolutely conceivable that Russia would use a pause in fighting to simply prepare the resumption of its offensive under some pretext blaming Ukraine for ceasefire violations or simply letting a temporary ceasefire run out,” said Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security at the University of Birmingham.
“That said, of course, Ukraine can similarly use the time and prepare for a future offensive and the question then would simply be who prepares better in the time available.”
Whether Russia and Ukraine use a ceasefire to regroup and rearm will depend on the nature of the agreement reached, including whether its terms prevent the two countries from doing so, Professor Wolff said.
“Part of the problem is also that we do not know whether what is on the table is a truce (a non-binding suspension of hostilities, usually for short periods of time) or an actual ceasefire (binding agreement, longer-lasting).
“A ceasefire can also involve restrictions on ‘re-grouping’ (as suggested here in relation to a future river crossing) or mandate that forces or particular types of weapons be withdrawn from specified areas or from a buffer zone.
“Either would require monitoring and potentially an enforcement mechanism.”
Professor Mark Galeotti, Russian expert and director of consultancy Mayak Intelligence, said Putin will delay any ceasefire deal until all Ukrainian troops are ejected from Russia’s Kursk region.
The Kremlin claimed on Sunday that advances from its forces have left Ukrainian troops with less than 200 sq km (77 sq mi) in Kursk – down from 1,300 sq km (500 sq mi) at the peak of the incursion.
“Putin has clearly delayed any announcements about the ceasefire until all of Kursk is back in his hands, as he is not going to risk freezing the conflict with Ukrainian troops still on Russian soil,” Professor Galeotti said.
Professor Wolff added that a “key question” now is whether Ukrainian troops will all get out Kursk and how much of their equipment they will manage to take with them.
“These are very experienced units which would be critical to bolstering Ukrainian defences elsewhere,” he said.
How could Ukraine’s borders change after the war?
Trump, Rubio and US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth have all cast doubt on the prospect of Ukraine returning to its pre-2014 borders under a ceasefire agreement.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin has made no secret of its goal of fully occupying Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions.
“In terms of the overall territorial settlement, if it were along the lines of Russia’s war aims (all four regions in their entirety), Ukraine would have to surrender territory it currently controls, including on the western shores of the Dnipro in the Kherson and Zaporizhia oblasts, as well as in Donetsk,” Professor Wolff said.
Russian forces invaded Ukraine in 2014 and seized Crimea – a peninsula extending from its southern coast.
“Russia, by contrast, is holding some territory in Kharkiv Oblast which it does not formally claim.
“It is really not clear where Trump will come down on this. For now, he seems keen to simply freeze the frontlines.”
Professor Wolff added that it would be “unlikely” for Russia and Ukraine to settle their borders along current frontlines.
“However, not accepting it is not the same as necessarily starting the war again.”
James Nixey, director of Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia Programme, warned that, even if a ceasefire deal is reached, the Kremlin will eventually seek to gain more land than it settles for as it “regards promises made to ‘non-countries’ such as Ukraine as having no validity”.
“So, again, we are heading for an impasse and a resumption of fighting – if it ever stops in the first place.”