Russian-held land in Ukraine will be exchanged for Ukrainian-occupied territory in Kursk, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, if US President Donald Trump invites both nations to the bargaining table.
“We will swap one territory for another,” Zelenskyy said in an interview with the media. Additionally, he declared that Ukraine would give up the Kursk area in Russia, which it has controlled since its unexpected invasion of the neighboring nation in August of last year.
Asked which Russian-occupied areas Ukraine would demand in return, Zelenskyy said “we will see”. “I don’t know, we will see. But all our territories are important. There is no priority,” he said.
Although Moscow does not have complete authority over them, Russia seized Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia in 2022 after annexing Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
Zelenskyy’s comments coincided with Trump’s announcement that the nearly three-year conflict in Ukraine would soon come to an end. Trump has asserted that he “wanted people to stop dying in the war” after speaking with Putin, which caused him to make some progress.
But according to Politico, Trump administration officials have acknowledged that Russia and Ukraine would need to make a sacrifice in order to put an end to the conflict.
Zelenskyy has demanded strong security assurances in the event that the US negotiates a settlement between Russia and Ukraine to end the war.
