PUBLISHED on August 8, 2025, 1:49 PM EDT – Key Points and Summary – A potential peace deal between the U.S. and Russia to end the war in Ukraine is reportedly in the works, one that would “lock in Russia’s occupation” of Ukrainian territory.
-The framework, being discussed ahead of a planned summit between Presidents Trump and Putin, would allegedly require Ukraine to cede the Donbas and Crimea.
-This would hand Vladimir Putin a “major win” while presenting Ukraine with a “take-it-or-leave-it” deal. The potential for a bilateral agreement made without Ukraine at the table has raised alarms in Kyiv and European capitals.
-When Donald Trump came back into the White House, promising to deliver a deal between Russia and Ukraine on day one, many expected that to entail the president delivering Russia a victory on Vladimir Putin’s terms, or a “peace plan” that involves some territories of Ukraine coming under Russian control.
The Ukraine War About to End?
In recent weeks, Trump has often been critical of his longtime friend Putin, even making weapons available to Ukraine and threatening Russia with new sanctions, in the form of secondary tariffs.
But with reports that week that Trump and Putin may meet as soon as next week, there’s a chance that the framework of a deal — one made between the two leaders, without Ukraine being at the table — could be in the offing.
“A Truce to Cement Putin’s Gains”
Per Bloomberg News, which cited “people familiar with the matter,” “Washington and Moscow are aiming to reach a deal to halt the war in Ukraine that would lock in Russia’s occupation of territory seized during its military invasion.”
The two sides are working on setting up a meeting between Trump and Putin, with the location still to be discussed.
Also, according to the Bloomberg report, “the U.S. is working to get buy-in from Ukraine and its European allies on the deal, which is far from certain.”
How might such a deal framework look?
“Putin is demanding that Ukraine cede its entire eastern Donbas area to Russia as well as Crimea, which his forces illegally annexed in 2014,” Bloomberg said. “That would require Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to order a withdrawal of troops from parts of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions still held by Kyiv, handing Russia a victory that its army couldn’t achieve militarily since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022.”
This would represent, per the report, a “major win” for Putin. The Ukrainian president, meanwhile, “risks being presented with a take-it-or-leave-it deal to accept the loss of Ukrainian territory, while Europe fears it would be left to monitor a ceasefire as Putin rebuilds his forces.”
What’s the Deal?
Bloomberg shared the terms of “the deal that officials are discussing.”
“Russia would halt its offensive in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine along the current battlelines,” Bloomberg reported, citing sources, while noting that the terms remain “in flux.”
“The agreement aims essentially to freeze the war and pave the way for a ceasefire and technical talks on a definitive peace settlement,” Bloomberg said. ”The US had earlier been pushing for Russia to agree first to an unconditional ceasefire to create space for negotiations on ending the war that’s now in its fourth year.”
Ukraine Frozen Out?
Another analysis, by NBC News, looked at the idea of whether Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy will end up on the outside looking in on an agreement.
“Just when Ukraine and its European allies thought President Donald Trump was coming round to their view of the war, he appeared to give a huge win to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin,” NBC’s Alexander Smith wrote.
“For Kyiv, this was Trump’s deadline to Putin: stop the fighting by Friday or face tough new economic sanctions. Instead, Trump has handed Moscow a diplomatic coup by agreeing to meet Putin face-to-face in a matter of days, their first encounter since the invasion of Ukraine.”
According to the report, Trump had initially indicated that he wanted to meet with both leaders, but it no longer appears to be the case, which is potentially terrible news for Ukraine.
“The danger for Ukraine is actually quite grave,” Jonathan Eyal, international director at the Royal United Services Institute, told NBC. “There will be a sense of alarm in European capitals.”
“Trump will be so pleased by what he perceives as the great achievement of getting Putin to the negotiating table that he grabs any kind of offer that is made,” Eyal added. “The danger of half-baked compromise, which Trump can claim as his main achievement, is very high.”
About the Author: Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist, and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review, and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, national security, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
Defense Watch
F/A-XX Is the YF-23 on a Carrier?
waco
August 8, 2025 at 5:51 pm
Nothin’ is certain at this moment. Or right now.
Nothin’, absolutely nothin’.
But supposing this article is true or correct, then it fully means the US is letting the Nazis off the hook.
Who would have allowed Adolf Hitler and his gang off the hook in 1945. Who.
Eisenhower ? Churchill ? Stalin or Truman, huh.
A big clear line must be DRAWN on the ground. To keep the peace for the next 100 – 500 years.
Becuz the brit and German and polish and french right-wingers ain’t done yet !!!
Paul
August 8, 2025 at 8:18 pm
Jeesh … if such a deal is really being considered, it’s not a betrayal of anything or giving a “win” to anybody other than the thousands dying daily. The harsh reality is Ukraine can’t win and Russia will continue it’s slow advance and whether it’s today or a couple more years the result will be the same, Russia will control all of the Donbas and crimea and the only difference is the body count. Strike that, if it goes on it can get much worse (Russia conquers ALL of Ukraine, or worse the U.S. and it’s allies get sacked into the conflict leading to tens of millions dead. So to the author and everyone else insisting Ukraine fight til the last Unkrainian. I say wake the F up and read the room, Ukraine is losing and will not reverse it’s losses. Contrary to the fantasy world expressed by so many, the bad guys do win sometimes and it’s best in those situations to minimize the damage, not go all-in only to have a worse outcome later.
Swamplaw Yankee
August 9, 2025 at 1:27 am
In 2014, the USA POTUS Obama’s Democrat Cabal unilaterally greenlighted the total loss of the WEST’s geopolitical advantage of owning the Ukraine’s Crimean soil, families and Black/Azov Sea zones to the prime, vile cold war enemy of the WEST, tsarling Putin.
The Reality is that Israel did not warn or debate this Yankee covert change in middle east geopolitics with its allies. There is zero public evidence of the contrary. That the POTUS Obama betrayal of the WEST to his marxist blood brothers of the cold war policy of hemming in the Putin dictatorship was being eliminated was not debated in the WEST by the long time allies of the USA. Again, there is zero evidence that Obama debated his unilateral 2014 betrayal of the WEST with any ally of the USA. Like Clinton’s USA bombing of the Chinese embassy in former Yugoslavia, Obama kept his secret intent to betray from the US elite and citizens.
Better still, Obama greenlighted Putin’s immediate re-start of the 1000 year old ancient russian tribal sex trade business in little Ukrainian children. Again, there was no one in the Democrat Cabal in 2014 who went public in opposition to the USA POTUS greenlighting the vicious ruskie tribal mass abduction of “Lolita” children for Putin’s sex trade business.
11 years later, the Democrat Cabal still openly lies that the Democrat POTUS did nothing of the sort and, therefore, the 2025 Democrat establishment does not need to object in any form, in any way, to Putin’s blatant re-start of russian mass human trafficking of huge numbers of Ukrainian children.
Because of the MSM connection to the Democrat Cabal, this 2014 POTUS Obama betrayal of the WEST is ignored and blame placed for the current genocide of Ukrainians on Ukraine without the slightest pretense of objectivity. They, like the MAGA POTUS, demand in 2025 that Ukraine wait for some magical pure moment of objectivity in a scam USA lead negotiation, a wait that precludes the possibility of meaningful discourse and ensures continued ruskie tribal mass abduction of Ukrainian children.
In 2014 the USA greenlighted the re-start of the centuries old russian tribal genocide of Ukrainians and theft of ancient Ukrainian soil. The above op-ed manipulates, markets and synthetically attaches the authors bias to current Ukrainian events. Unless this sort of manipulation is identified and revealed, the strange emotional reactions to the re-start of the ancient tribal need of peasant russians to genocide Ukrainians remains unclear to the Yankee information media consumer.
The US citizen remains the best immediate antidote to the fantasy of a unilateral magic negotiation with an self-selected, cognitively impaired adjudicator, the brutal suppresser of any mention of Obama’s 2014 role, POTUS Trump.
Ukraine needed the military equipment that the USA had, ever since the 2014 re-start of genocidal aggression. Ukraine needs the military equipment that the USA has today. With the loss of so many of its fathers, Ukraine needs the technology that the USA has right now to stop more Ukrainian death from a re-supplied Putin led, captive slave army.
The US citizen has to understand the old 1906 term of “ethnocentrism”. Add the notion of “ethnic distance” which signifies a specific type of social distance.
The Balkan war showed that the US citizen had a near impossible task understanding that in the post-communist Yugoslavia mish mash and also the genesis of the then Balkan War.
With the 2025 re-start of an ancient genocide the US citizen has a simpler task in the inherent primitivism, tribalism and nationalism of the peasant russian ethnic. The need of the russian ethnic to genocide Ukrainians stops with the public demand by the USA POTUS that all illegally occupied Ukraine is returned! yes, readers, it is as “Simple” as that.
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