The mayor of Kyiv has said that Ukraine may need to temporarily give up land to secure a peace deal with Russia.
US-brokered negotiations over a ceasefire appear to have stalled, and the White House has threatened to withdraw from the talks if they do not yield results.
Donald Trump has blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for holding up talks, saying Russia is “ready” to make a deal despite it repeatedly rejecting a full ceasefire and continuing missile attacks.
Zelensky is seeking a full and unconditional ceasefire, including in Crimea, which Russia has occupied since invading it in 2014.
In talks so far, he has refused to countenance Ukrainian acceptance of Russian control over Crimea and areas of four more regions of southern Ukraine annexed by Moscow in 2022.
But Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko broke ranks on Thursday and said Ukraine might need to cede territory to Russia to end the war.
Vitali Klitschko inspects a multistorey residential building destroyed by a missile attack in Kyiv in January 2024 (Photo: Genya Savilov/AFP)“One of the scenarios is… to give up territory. It’s not fair. But for the peace, temporary peace, maybe it can be a solution, temporary,” he told the BBC.
Klitschko stressed that the Ukrainian people would “never accept occupation” by Russia.
Several analysts have said that Russia has little incentive to agree to a ceasefire and may be deliberately stalling in the hope that the White House will lose interest in brokering a deal.
Klitschko and Zelensky have long had a tense relationship, with the mayor accusing Zelenksy of becoming autocratic.
The mayor’s comments drew anger in some parts of the Ukrainian government.
Oleksandra Azarkhina, former deputy minister in Ukraine, said that “the things he says just shouldn’t be said out loud” and warned that such a narrative could reward Russia’s actions and encourage future invasions.
“Formal recognition of the Crimea annexation is just an open door for the Greenland annexation,” she told The i Paper, referring to Trump’s threats to annex the autonomous island from Denmark. “That’s [about] way more than Ukraine.”
Dr Spyros Economides, associate professor in International Relations and European Politics at the London School of Economics, said the comments could be a deliberate attempt to undermine Zelensky.
A Ukrainian serviceman carries a dog out of a house damaged by a Russian airstrike in a residential neighbourhood in Kyiv on Thursday (Photo: Evgeniy Maloletkva/AP)“Klitschko and Zelensky don’t really get along politically they’re opponents, and he may just be doing it to stick the thorn into Zelensky’s side. It’s possible, especially given the fact that there could be elections in the near future,” he said.
Callum Fraser, research fellow at the defence think-tank the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), said the comments certainly “put pressure on Zelensky to acknowledge this potential reality.”
“How Zelensky responds to this will indicate whether this is an opinion shared with his inner circle,” he said.
But Alex Petric, senior analyst on the Eurasia team at the intelligence company Janes, said that “while the comments are not helpful, Zelensky can avoid any fallout by simply referencing the Ukrainian constitution, which in Articles 13 and 17 stipulates that territories and territorial integrity are a matter for the Ukrainian people to decide on.”
“Zelensky has not integrated Klitschko in the broader national decision-making, and Klitschko’s influence nationally is very limited,” he said.
Comments could be temperature check on public mood
Economides said an alternative interpretation was that the comments were being used to gauge the Ukrainian public’s response to such an outcome and to inform Kyiv’s stance in negotiations.
“This is something that Zelensky himself could never say, and Zelensky immediately came out and said this is unacceptable, Ukraine has to remain sovereign, and its territorial integrity has to be maintained,” Economides said.
“This could be a way of floating this idea to the Ukrainian public, so Zelensky doesn’t have to do it himself; Klitschko can say it and see what the response is.”
Mr Fraser said that the Ukrainian public appeared to be strongly behind Zelensky and his aim of a total strategic victory.
However, he said that Trump’s involvement might be dimming hopes of achieving this, as he appears to pander to Putin’s demands and blame Ukraine for the conflict.
square RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR How the Ukraine war could end - in four maps
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“The US peace plan has introduced the concept of giving up territory as a realistic probability. If Ukraine feels it cannot rely on Europe to fill the gap of a withdrawing US, then the population’s opinion on this may well start to change.”
Marnie Howlett, lecturer in Russian and East European Politics at the University of Oxford, said that if a deal were considered too lenient to Putin, Ukrainian soldiers and civilians might refuse to accept it.
“It is not only illegal, but unfeasible for Russia to claim Ukraine as Ukrainians will not stop defending their country,” Howlett said.
What land could be given up?
Klitschko, who said he was not involved in the ceasefire negotiations, did not specify which areas of land could be given up, and estimates vary.
Moscow currently controls around 20 per cent of Ukrainian territory.
Some reports have indicated that the war could end along the existing battle lines. In this case, Russia would keep the large swathes of four Ukrainian territories – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – that it currently occupies but not the entirety of these regions. Moscow would likely also gain formal recognition of Crimea.
In the worst-case scenario for Kyiv, Ukraine could be forced to cede all territory Russia has tried to claim – including the areas of those four key regions that Ukrainian troops currently control. Russia’s constitution now counts these as Russian territories.
However, this is deemed politically intolerable for the Ukrainian Government and its people, as well as being logistically difficult because handing over territory requires a referendum.
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