PUBLISHED on August 18, 2025, 11:51 AM EDT – Key Points and Summary: Following the Alaska summit, Vladimir Putin’s proposed “peace deal” has been slammed by Ukraine as a maximalist land grab.
-The Russian plan reportedly demands Ukraine’s full withdrawal from the Donbas and other occupied territories, recognition of the 2014 Crimea annexation, and the scrapping of its NATO ambitions.
-In return, Russia would only cede minor tracts of land. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has firmly rejected the proposal, viewing it not as a compromise but as a roadmap for future Russian aggression, leaving the two nations’ war aims fundamentally unchanged and a true peace deal as distant as ever.
Ukraine Slams Putin’s Land Grab Plans Post-Alaska Summit
Russian President Vladimir Putin has enraged Kyiv by suggesting it cede swathes of its eastern territory. Such a deal would allow Ukraine to have limited land concessions and vague defense guarantees, Reuters reports.
Trump Says Deal Plans ‘Largely Agreed’
The meeting at Alaska’s Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson was the first face-to-face encounter between Putin and a U.S. president since Russia’s full-scale 2022 invasion.
While the summit produced no ceasefire, Trump later told Fox News that he and Putin had “largely agreed” on the contours of a deal, though he admitted Ukraine may reject it outright.
Russia Demands Donbas for Ukraine War Peace
Sources who were briefed on last week’s Alaska summit, in which Putin met with U.S. President Donald Trump, said that the envisioned plan would mean Ukraine withdrawing from both Donetsk and Luhansk, the provinces that comprise the Donbas region.
In return, Russia would freeze the battle lines in the Zaporizhzhia and southern Kherson regions.
It would also give up its minor tracts of control in Kharkiv and Sumy; however, these areas are the equivalent of under one-tenth of what Moscow wants in Donbas.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has already poured cold water on the proposal and is in Washington this week for his talks with Trump.
He continued to stress that no Ukrainian land is negotiable. Ukrainian officials view Donetsk as a crucial defensive bulwark and worry that abandoning it would expose deeper parts of the country to more Russian action.
Putin also demands that certain Western sanctions are scrapped, and that Russian sovereignty over Crimea is recognized.
The peninsula was annexed in 2014. He also wants Ukraine’s NATO ambitions scrapped in favor of ill-defined “security guarantees” outside the alliance framework—perhaps an “Article 5-lite” arrangement, as floated by Trump in weekend calls with European leaders.
For Kyiv, which has enshrined working towards NATO membership in its constitution, such a demand cuts to the heart of its strategic orientation.
Putin’s Demands are Expansive on the Ukraine War
Putin’s wish list does not stop there. He is said to want official status for the Russian language in Ukraine and freedom for the Moscow-linked Orthodox Church to operate.
Kyiv has long accused the church of aiding Russia’s war effort, an allegation its leadership denies. A slew of world leaders slammed the move. Ukraine recently passed legislation to restrict such groups, though enforcement has been slow.
Taken together, the proposals appear more like a maximalist starting point than a compromise.
While Trump has been eager to brand himself a dealmaker capable of ending the war, the details suggest that Putin is still bargaining from a position of territorial ambition, not retreat.
For Ukraine, battered by daily missile and drone attacks, the calculus is stark: accepting Putin’s terms would mean conceding to the very logic of conquest the West vowed to resist.
European leaders appear hesitant about the idea, but they have significantly less leverage in negotiations than Washington.
For now, this recent summit shows that Putin’s war aims remain fundamentally unchanged—and that any “peace plan” on these terms would likely come at Ukraine’s expense.
About the Author: Georgia Gilholy
Georgia Gilholy is a journalist based in the United Kingdom who has been published in Newsweek, The Times of Israel, and the Spectator. Gilholy writes about international politics, culture, and education. You can follow her on X: @llggeorgia.
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