Russia is demanding Ukraine cede all of its eastern Donbas region, but would be willing to freeze the conflict in the south of the country along current front lines, Turkey’s top diplomat has said.
Russia currently controls about one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory and claims to have annexed five regions—Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Crimea, which was seized in 2014.
At peace talks in Istanbul earlier this year, Russian negotiators called for Ukraine to withdraw from these regions as a precondition for ending the conflict that began in 2022.
But following a summit between Russian president Vladimir Putin and U.S. president Donald Trump, Moscow has scaled back its demands, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said.
“Now they have given up on that demand and are staying on the contact lines, except for one region … There is currently a preliminary (agreement) regarding the return of 25-30 percent of Donetsk and maintaining the contact line in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson,” Fidan said in an interview with TGRT Haber on Thursday.
It was not clear who that agreement was between. Ukraine has repeatedly rejected territorial concessions, though President Volodymyr Zelensky has previously said Kyiv would need to secure the return of land through diplomacy, not on the battlefield.
Turkey has hosted three rounds of Russia-Ukraine talks in Istanbul in recent months that have failed to break the deadlock.
Despite a deadly strike on Kyiv on Thursday that killed at least 23 people, Fidan noted some progress in diplomatic efforts.
