“Putin offered Trump to give him Donbas in exchange for the withdrawal of Russian troops from three regions of Ukraine,” – expert

Russian President Vladimir Putin is offering U.S. President Donald Trump a withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the Donbas in exchange for the withdrawal of Russian troops from three Ukrainian regions — Sumy, Kharkiv, and Dnipropetrovsk.

This was reported to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera by Dmitry Suslov, deputy director of the Center for European and International Studies at the Higher School of Economics in Russia.

The publication claims that Suslov is a “trusted Kremlin adviser on foreign policy” (although he does not officially hold such a title). He stated that the Alaska summit could result in a bilateral Russian–American plan for achieving a ceasefire in Ukraine.

“This plan could include the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from areas of Donbas where they are still present, and the withdrawal of Russian troops from the Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kharkiv regions, while the front line in other directions (that is, in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions) would remain unchanged,” the expert said.

In his view, “the most important part of the agreement is Ukraine’s commitment not to join NATO.” This is “an inevitable precondition for any ceasefire.”

In addition, Suslov believes that “final agreements should also include the demilitarization of Ukraine and a constitutional reform in a federal sense.”

He added that “Putin is asking for slightly less in exchange for a ceasefire than he was a year ago.”

According to Suslov, there is a high chance that Trump will support the Russian proposals.

“He (Trump) has put himself in a difficult position by asking China, India, and Brazil to stop importing Russian oil, threatening them with secondary sanctions. China, obviously, says ‘no,’ but even New Delhi and Brasília would never do this, and their refusal would become a problem for America: at that point, either Trump backs down, appearing weak, or he gets drawn into a serious political and commercial conflict with China and two key BRICS countries, with unpredictable results. On the other hand, if the Alaska summit were successful and a general ceasefire plan for Ukraine were approved, the fuse he recklessly lit with China, India, and Brazil would be defused, and the American president could even claim historic credit. That’s why we expect Trump to accept Putin’s proposal. For him, it is essentially a way out,” the Russian expert said.

Earlier, Zelensky stated that Ukraine would not give up its territories.