Zelensky proposes to exchange occupied territories with Russia

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has proposed an exchange of occupied territories with Russia as part of any potential negotiations to end the war.

Ukraine retains control of a small area of Russian territory, parts of Kursk Oblast, captured during a surprise raid in August.

In that regard, Zelensky said in an interview with The Guardian that he planned to offer Russia control of Kursk in exchange for Ukrainian territory under Russian occupation. That is, in the president's words, "We will swap one territory for another.”

However, the Ukrainian leader did not specify which territory he would ask to be returned to Ukraine in exchange for Kursk, nor did he address negotiations on the status of other lands occupied by Russia. In that regard he merely said, "I don’t know, we will see. But all our territories are important, there is no priority."

Zelensky's comments come at the same time that President Donald Trump is laying the groundwork for negotiations between Ukraine and Russia to stop the nearly three-year war, since Russia launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Zelensky and JD Vance together

Volodymyr Zelensky, will meet with US Vice President JD Vance at the Munich Security Conference in Germany this Friday, February 14, AFP Ukrainian presidential spokesman Sergei Nykyforov told AFP.

The Trump administration has been very clear about the war between the two countries

On February 7, on the sidelines of a press conference alongside Prime Minister of Japan, Shigeru Ishiba in the Oval Office of the White House, Trump said he might soon meet with his Ukrainian counterpart.

On that occasion, the Republican noted that they "may meet next week, yeah. Whenever he would like. I’m here."

In addition, the president said that he will probably talk to President Putin and expressed that he would like that war to end and said that the main reason is that many people are being killed.

Along those lines, Trump described the war in Ukraine as a conflict unprecedented since World War II, stressing the scale of daily casualties on the battlefield. "Soldiers are being killed on a daily basis at numbers that we haven’t seen in decades," he lamented. "It would be nice to end that war. It’s a ridiculous war."