US negotiators are reportedly considering a plan to redraw the boundaries of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts so that Vladimir Putin can claim he has “liberated Donbas” without Ukraine surrendering the cities it actually holds. The front line would remain exactly where it is. Only the map would change.
The Map Trick
Under the idea being discussed, the Ukrainian-held parts of Donetsk get assigned to other regions. These fairy-tale real-estate agents around Trump are treating an invasion as a dispute over property listings.
Russia currently demands all of Donetsk oblast as a condition for a ceasefire. Ukraine will accept only a freeze along the present front line. Renaming the territory does not resolve that disagreement. More importantly, Putin’s demands have never stopped at a neat piece of land on a map. Moscow also wants Ukraine neutral, its armed forces reduced and foreign troops kept out. A plan to leave the whole country vulnerable to the next attack goes far beyond a compromise over an oblast boundary. Europe would be foolish to imagine Russia’s ambitions end at Ukraine’s western border.
The Other Carrots
The Economist also reports that Washington is offering to reconnect Russia to European energy markets. So the package pairs a paper victory for Putin with a potential economic reward, while Moscow continues its winter campaign against Ukrainian infrastructure. Kyiv’s assessment is that negotiations are Russia’s Plan B; destroying that infrastructure remains Plan A.
Russia has reportedly become more flexible about freezing the current front line since the US offered talks on the security of Europe as a whole. That gives Moscow a much bigger table on which to pile demands. Every new condition can buy it more time.
The Clock in Washington
The Economist links the haste around the Abu Dhabi talks to US domestic politics: Republican election losses and the prospect of investigations involving Witkoff and Kushner from January. That pressure is no excuse to sell a theatrical fix as peace. It makes the incentives of the people designing it worth scrutinising all the harder.
Ukraine is asking for support to maintain an 800,000-strong army for at least ten years. US negotiators consider that too expensive and argue that American security guarantees would suffice. Ukrainians have reason to doubt Trump would enforce them.
A changed map cannot defend a city; an army can.
