22 August 2025
Ukrainian soldiers inspect the site of a Russian Shahed drone strike in Sloviansk, where the war started in 2014 Credit: Getty Images Europe
Vladimir Putin is laying a trap he wants the West to “walk into” over Ukrainian land concessions, the EU’s top diplomat has said.
The Russian president is still demanding that Kyiv give up the entire Donbas region, Reuters reported on Thursday citing sources familiar with top-level Kremlin thinking.
Kaja Kallas, the former prime minister of Estonia, told the BBC’s Today programme that handing Ukrainian territory to Russia was a “trap that Putin wants us to walk into”.
“Putin is just laughing, not stopping the killing but increasing the killing,” she said. “We are forgetting that Russia has not made one single concession.”
Ms Kallas, who is on the Kremlin’s “wanted list”, said it was important that Ukraine be given “credible and robust” security guarantees to enforce any future agreement.
“The strongest security guarantee is a strong Ukraine army,” she said, dismissing Putin’s demand that Ukraine become a neutral country.
Putin will not stop war without Donbas
Vladimir Putin is still demanding that Ukraine withdraw from the entire Donbas region despite Volodymyr Zelensky refusing to give up Ukrainian-held territory, sources close to the Kremlin have said.
The Russian president has not shifted from his maximalist demands that Kyiv give up the valuable territory, as well as agree to limits on its armed forces, end its ambitions of joining Nato and block any presence of western troops within its borders, Reuters reported.
The report, citing three sources familiar with top-level Kremlin thinking, will deepen the sense that negotiations are at an impasse after hopes for a deal were raised following Putin’s one-to-one meeting with Donald Trump in Alaska last week.
In return for withdrawing from the Donbas, Moscow would halt the current front lines in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
Russia controls about 88pc of the Donbas and 73pc of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, data show. To strike a deal, Moscow could also hand over the small parts of Kharkiv, Sumy and Dnipropetrovsk it controls.
Mr Zelensky rejected Putin’s demands in comments made on Thursday. “If we’re talking about simply withdrawing from the east, we cannot do that,” he said.
Aftermath of Russian shelling on Ukraine’s Kostiantynivka Credit: Anadolu
EU’s thinly-veiled swipe at Trump over Putin summit
The EU’s top diplomat has made a thinly-veiled swap at Donald Trump over his decision to welcome Vladimir Putin to Alaska for talks on Ukraine.
“This is what he [Putin] wanted. I mean, it was clear before the meeting that he wants the picture, but he got so much more,” Kaja Kallas said.
“He got such a welcoming in America. And then he also wanted the sanctions, not to be put in place, but he also achieved. So I think right now, his interest is down because he has achieved what he wanted from this meeting.”
Why the entire peace deal hangs on the Donbas
Although the Kazenyi Torets river runs through four major towns and is flanked by a railway and a road, you could drive the length of its valley without setting eyes on it. Hidden for most of its length by a thick band of marshy woodland on either bank, its waters are mostly left to kingfishers and frogs.
Crucially, though, this placid river runs through the centre of the last quarter of Donetsk region held by Ukraine, and the string of towns on its banks have been forged into a fortress – a near-impregnable stronghold that has resisted Russian attacks for more than a decade.
Eleven years ago, I watched the war in Ukraine begin on its banks. Three years ago, I sat again by the river and wondered as Russian shelling grew closer if it was the last time I would see it. Now, it is at the very heart of contentious negotiations to end the war.
Vladimir Putin has written all of Donetsk region into the Russian constitution and has made clear he wants the entire region – especially this last, defiant valley – as a price for peace. Donald Trump appears to be ready to push Volodymyr Zelensky to make such a trade