Free Republic

Four years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Trump administration is pressing Kyiv to agree to painful territorial concessions as the price for peace. In a draft peace agreement first reported by Axios in November, the administration proposed that the entire regions of Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk be recognized as de facto Russian territory and that Russia retain control of the parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia its forces now occupy. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is pushing back, refusing to do anything that would violate his country’s territorial integrity. Yet the realities of the battlefield are not on his side....

Ukraine’s military cannot independently retake Crimea and Donbas, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with the French newspaper Le Parisien, published on Tuesday. He warned that entering negotiations with Putin under current conditions would give the Russian leader the power to dictate terms across the region. “First, we need to develop a model, an action plan, a peace plan — call it what you will. Then, we can present it to Putin or, more broadly, to the Russian people,” Zelensky explained.