If the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, meet in Istanbul on Would possibly 15, territory – and who controls it – shall be top on their schedule.
Putin introduced to start out direct talks between Russia and Ukraine at a press convention on Would possibly 11. Donald Trump driven Zelensky to simply accept this be offering in a social media put up, pronouncing that “Ukraine should agree to this, IMMEDIATELY.”
The Ukrainian president, nonetheless buoyed through a gathering with the British, French, German and Polish leaders that referred to as for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire, agreed in a while afterwards.
Russia has stated it desires to concentrate on the Istanbul verbal exchange of March 2022 and a next draft settlement that used to be negotiated, however by no means followed, through the 2 facets in April 2022.
Those 2022 negotiations serious about Ukraine changing into a completely impartial state and on which countries would offer safety promises for any deal. In addition they relegated discussions over Crimea to split negotiations with a ten-to-15-year time-frame.
Russia makes use of the word “the current situation on the ground” as thinly disguised code for territorial questions that experience grow to be extra contentious over the last 3 years. This pertains to Russian positive aspects at the battlefield and the unlawful annexation of 4 Ukrainian areas in September 2022 (along with Crimea, which Russia additionally illegally annexed in 2014).
Russia’s place, as articulated not too long ago through the rustic’s overseas minister, Sergey Lavrov, is that “the international recognition of Crimea, Sevastopol, the DPR, the LPR, the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions as part of Russia is … imperative”.
That is obviously a non-starter for Ukraine, as many times said through Zelensky. There may, then again, be some flexibility on accepting that some portions of sovereign Ukrainian territory are below transient Russian keep watch over. This has been steered through each Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, and Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko.
Institute for the Learn about of Warfare.
Black Sea’s strategic worth
The territories that Russia recently occupies, and claims, in Ukraine have various strategic, financial and symbolic worth for Moscow and Kyiv. The spaces with the best strategic worth come with Crimea and the territories at the shores of the Azov Sea, which offer Russia with a land hall to Crimea.
The global popularity of Crimea as a part of Russia, as it seems that steered below the phrases of an settlement hashed out through Putin and Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff, may increase the spaces of the Black Sea that Russia can declare to legally keep watch over.
This is able to then be utilized by the Kremlin as a launchpad for renewed assaults on Ukraine and to threaten Nato’s jap maritime flank in Romania and Bulgaria. Any everlasting popularity of Russia’s keep watch over of those territories is, due to this fact, unacceptable to Ukraine and its Eu companions.
Donetsk and Luhansk are of decrease strategic worth, when compared with Crimea and the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia areas. On the other hand, they do have financial worth on account of the really extensive sources positioned there. Those come with probably the most mineral and different sources that had been the topic of a separate deal which the United States and Ukraine concluded on April 30.
In addition they come with Europe’s greatest nuclear energy plant in Zaporizhzhia and a big labour drive amongst their estimated inhabitants of between 4.5 million to five.5 million individuals who shall be important to Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction.
Past the strategic and financial worth of the illegally occupied territories, the symbolism that each side connect to their keep watch over is essentially the most important impediment to any deal, given how irreconcilable Moscow’s and Kyiv’s positions are. For each side, keep watch over of those territories, or loss thereof, is what defines victory or defeat within the struggle.
Putin might be able to declare that some territorial positive aspects in Ukraine because the get started of the full-scale invasion in February 2022 are a victory for Russia. However even for him any compromise that will see Russia surrender territory that it has conquered – continuously at exceptionally top value – could be a dangerous gamble for the stableness of his regime.
Anything else not up to your complete recovery of the rustic’s territorial integrity in its 1991 borders would indicate popularity of defeat within the struggle for Ukraine. This could severely threaten the stableness of the Zelensky executive, whose political programme rests on precisely the idea of a go back to the 1991 borders.
Lengthy-term penalties
Consequently, the Ukrainian management has grow to be hostage to its personal data technique, which has positioned the “return of all territories” on the best of the factors for victory. This can be a purpose broadly shared amongst Ukrainians, in keeping with a ballot carried out through the Razumkov Heart in March 2025. However it is going to be exhausting to succeed in.
Aside from the prospective home fall-out from any territorial compromises that Ukraine is also compelled to make, there may be one more reason why the territorial query has grow to be so intractable.
Past any strategic, financial and symbolic worth that the occupied Ukrainian territories dangle from the Kremlin’s standpoint, keep watch over over territory has at all times been an tool for Russia to pursue its broader geopolitical schedule of exercising affect over its neighbours – from Moldova, to Georgia, Armenia and Ukraine.
It’s also essential to keep in mind that Russia’s territorial claims in Ukraine have steadily expanded since 2014. Till September 2022, when it annexed the opposite 4 areas, Russia laid declare to Crimea best.
Russia’s aggression in opposition to Ukraine used to be now not a struggle over territory as such, however used to be a part of Moscow’s schedule to revive the sector of affect that it misplaced on the finish of the chilly struggle. This schedule is a ways from completed.
The tactic of each Moscow and Washington to concentrate on territorial penalties would possibly result in a ceasefire. However it is going to now not cope with the basic factor of the best way to handle a vengeful and revisionist autocracy on Europe’s doorsteps.
