Putin offers to freeze Ukraine invasion along current battle lines as U.S. suggests recognition of annexed territories — The Financial Times

Sources familiar with a meeting earlier this month between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, told The Financial Times on Tuesday that Russia’s president has offered to “halt his invasion of Ukraine across the current front line as part of efforts to reach a peace deal with U.S.” According to FT’s sources, under Putin’s proposition, the Kremlin “could relinquish its claims to areas of four partly occupied Ukrainian regions that remain under Kyiv’s control.” The areas in question are the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions, which Moscow annexed in September 2022 but still does not fully control. 

On X, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace military expert Dara Massicot cautioned that Putin’s “apparent concession,” as FT described it, is not actually a “concession or gift” because “Russia does not have the military offensive capacity to occupy the rest of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson without large reconstitution and revising tactics.” 

As Putin offers to freeze the current front lines in Ukraine (after the expulsion of the last remaining Ukrainian incursion forces from Russia’s Kursk region), the U.S. has reportedly proposed a possible settlement that includes U.S. recognition of “Russian ownership of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula” and “at least acknowledging the Kremlin’s de facto control over the parts of the four regions it currently holds.” European officials briefed on the offer told FT that Putin’s offer is likely “bait to lure Trump into accepting Russia’s other demands and forcing them on Ukraine as a fait accompli.”

Update: Asked about the FT report, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “There’s a lot of fake news being published right now — including by reputable outlets — so it’s important to rely only on primary sources.”

FT also reported that Witkoff and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio have withdrawn from a planned Wednesday meeting in London where Ukrainian officials are expected to meet European and U.S. allies to “discuss the latest proposals.” Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, is still scheduled to attend the London summit.