A Russian foreign ministry official has poured cold water on the idea that both Russia and Ukraine would need to swap territory to reach a peace agreement.
“The territorial structure of the Russian Federation is enshrined in our country’s Constitution. That says it all. Therefore, as far as the Russian delegation’s goals in the Alaska talks are concerned, they are dictated exclusively by national interests,” Alexey Fadeev, deputy director of the ministry’s Department of Information and Press, said today.
Fadeev appeared to be referring to Russia’s illegal annexation of the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, in which Moscow held sham referendums in 2022 to lay formal claims to areas under Russian control as well as land never occupied by Russian forces. The annexation has been denounced by Ukraine’s allies and is not internationally recognized.
Last week, US President Donald Trump indicated that there could be “some swapping of territories” between Moscow and Kyiv as part of a negotiation to end the war.
Earlier in the war, the Kremlin also dismissed suggestions of swapping the territory held by Ukraine in the Kursk region. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in February that “this is impossible. Russia has never discussed and will not discuss the topic of exchanging its territory.”
Six months later, Ukraine’s footprint in Kursk has almost completely disappeared, according to analysis from the Institute for the Study of War.
Russia’s war goals: “As for the fundamental position on the settlement of the crisis … Russia’s position is unchanged,” Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Alexey Fadeev said today, according to Russian state media RIA Novosti.
Putin has repeatedly used NATO as an excuse for his invasion of Ukraine and demanded that Kyiv is blocked from joining the alliance and accept permanent neutrality.