Russian President Vladimir Putin’s proposed ceasefire along Ukraine’s front line has been flatly rejected in Kiev. If the war ended today, Ukrainians would threaten to lose about a quarter of their globally recognized territory, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky. .
The scenario on the front line is uncertain and estimates of the overall dominance of Ukrainian territory controlled through Russia vary. Zelensky said in February that Moscow controlled 26% of Ukrainian territory, a figure that will now be higher given Russia’s offensive successes in the east. the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, and its recent conquest of new territories in the northeastern Kharkiv region.
Independent estimates made earlier this year are lower, with the maximum taking into account less than 20% of Ukraine’s land held by Russia. This represented a fundamental relief from the early days of the war and followed a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive north of Kyiv in April 2022, and around Kharkiv and Kherson later that year.
However, Moscow still controls giant swaths of the east and south of the country. His troops are now engaged in a multi-front offensive supposedly aimed at completing the capture of four controlled Ukrainian regions (Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson) that Putin claimed. annexed in September 2022.
The Kremlin also still controls the Crimean peninsula, which it occupied in 2014 following the pro-Western Maidan revolution. Kiev has pledged to liberate this land, as well as all others, in accordance with its independent borders identified in 1991.
According to data from the United Nations and Russia, up to 11 million Ukrainians could be living under occupation. Other estimates are lower, but still imply that around five million Ukrainians live in Russian-controlled areas, and millions more have been illegally deported. to Russia or fled their homes.
Oleksandr Merezhko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and chairman of the institution’s affairs committee, rejected Putin’s announced peace proposal.
The Kremlin, Merezhko told Newsweek last month, “needs a breather for several years, to modernize the army and continue the aggression against Ukraine and the West. “
“Putin sees that Ukraine is starting to get significant military aid from the United States and that Russia will suffer more casualties,” Merezhko said. “It turns out that Putin fears that a protracted war will cause more discontent with his policies among Russians. elite and in the army. “
Any peace proposal will remain empty, Merezhko added, as long as the Kremlin continues to lay claim to the partially occupied regions. “Putin has put himself on the spot by adding several Ukrainian provinces to the Russian constitution,” he said. “That means he’s going to continue the war faster or later anyway. “
Relatively few Ukrainians keep the peace along the existing front line, despite the enormous tensions and costs of more than two years of full-scale war against their giant neighbor. However, their numbers are increasing.
A poll conducted through Japan’s NHK and Ukraine’s Rating in February, for example, found that only 24% of respondents believed peace talks were starting; twice as many as those who said so in February 2023. A majority of 68% still say Ukraine continues to fight to reconquer all lost territories.
Few observers expect a ceasefire agreement with Russia to be respected, given the difference between the two sides’ expectations. Putin’s Kremlin is determined to subdue Ukraine, while Kyiv needs the war to serve as a coup de grâce for Moscow’s historic influence over its smaller neighbor and a springboard into the transatlantic community.
Pavel Luzin, a Russian military analyst and visiting fellow at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Medford, Massachusetts, told Newsweek last month that Moscow’s forces “need a pause, but they wouldn’t possibly end the war. “
“For today, at least Donetsk and Luhansk,” Luzin added. “The challenge is that the Kremlin also claims the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions as Russian territory. “
David Brennan is Newsweek’s diplomatic correspondent covering global politics and clashes from London, with topics on NATO, the European Union and the Russia-Ukraine war. David joined Newsweek in 2018 and has since reported on key locations and summits in Europe and the South Caucasus. This includes detailed reports on the Baltic, Nordic and Central European regions, as well as Georgia and Ukraine. Originally from London, David graduated from Cambridge University with a major in the History of Empires and Revolutions. You can reach David on d. brennan@newsweek. com and stay with him on Twitter @DavidBrennan100.
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