Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has revealed that Russia wants Ukraine to withdraw from the entire eastern region of Donetsk as part of a ceasefire deal. This demand comes ahead of a meeting between Russian leader Vladimir Putin and United States President Donald Trump in Alaska on Friday.
Zelenskyy emphasized that Kyiv, which still controls 9,000 square kilometers of Ukraine’s Donetsk, would not agree to this stipulation, as it is unconstitutional and would incentivize future Russian aggression. “A lot will depend on availability, quantity and quality of Ukrainian reserves,” said Pasi Paroinen, a military analyst with the Finland-based Black Bird Group.
The Ukrainian military has been engaged in “difficult” fighting close to Pokrovsk and Dobropillia, with extra soldiers needed to block attacks by small groups of Russian troops. Russia’s advance is one of the most dramatic in the past year, with its soldiers infiltrating 17km past Ukrainian lines over the last three days.
Moscow hopes to encircle the nearby city of Pokrovsk, and Ukraine’s DeepState blog described the situation as “quite chaotic”, as Russian troops are “infiltrating deeper, trying to quickly consolidate and accumulate forces for further advancement”. The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based research group, said that Moscow’s advances in the Dobropillia area do not yet amount to “an operational-level breakthrough”.
The Russian advance in eastern Ukraine comes as Europe hopes to rally Trump to Ukraine’s cause at an emergency virtual summit on Wednesday. European leaders, except Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, welcomed Trump’s efforts “towards ending Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine”, but emphasized that “the path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine” and that “international borders must not be changed by force”.
Trump had earlier disappointed his European allies by saying that Ukraine would have to cede land to Russia if peace is to be achieved. Al Jazeera’s correspondent Charles Stratford reported from Kyiv that Europeans are “anxious” because the Trump-Putin summit potentially has “serious implications for European security”.
Meanwhile, Zelenskyy warned that Russia is “not preparing to end the war”, despite the scheduled Alaska meeting. “On the contrary, they are making movements that indicate preparations for new offensive operations,” he wrote on X. Putin and his North Korean counterpart and ally, Kim Jong Un, have had a phone call about the upcoming Alaska summit, the Kremlin said on Tuesday.
Relations between Russia and North Korea have deepened dramatically during the last two years of the war in Ukraine, with Pyongyang deploying more than 10,000 troops and arms to back Moscow. The situation on the ground continues to be fluid, with both sides engaged in intense fighting and diplomatic efforts.