By James Marson

Talks between the U.S. and Russia over the war in Ukraine are zeroing in on five regions of Ukraine that Moscow claims as its own but that Kyiv isn't prepared to give up.

President Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff says the territories are key to resolving the war, and they are shaping up to be central to the deal he is negotiating with the Kremlin on Trump's behalf. But their status could in fact become a sticking point to any deal.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson to be part of Russia. All the territories are in Ukraine and at least partially occupied by Moscow's troops.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukraine will never recognize the territories as Russian. If the Trump administration puts pressure on him to give up some or all of the territories, he will face a dilemma: risk losing the support of the U.S. if he doesn't, or the Ukrainians if he does. Either outcome would be good for Putin.

Who controls the regions?

The five provinces of Ukraine that Russia claims as part of its country form a band of territory across its southeast that is rich in farmland, mineral deposits and industrial plants. Russia's invasion has led to thousands of deaths, the destruction of several cities and mass depopulation there.

Russian forces seized the peninsula of Crimea in 2014 and parts of eastern Ukraine, and Putin began making vocal claims on the rest, describing them as historically Russian. Attempts to grab more territory failed amid fierce resistance from Ukrainians.

After Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, its army captured most of Luhansk, much of Donetsk and parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. Ukraine retook the regional capital of Kherson at the end of 2022, and Russia has struggled to make headway in its efforts to achieve its immediate goal of seizing all of Donetsk.

Russia quickly and violently cracked down on any opposition to its rule in occupied territories, and sought to legitimize its presence by staging what it called referendums in September 2022. Moscow said the overwhelming majority had voted in favor of joining Russia and declared them part of Russian territory. Most of the rest of the world didn't recognize the move and condemned it.

What has Witkoff said?

Witkoff first brought up the regions in an interview with Tucker Carlson in March, although he initially got the number of them wrong and couldn't remember most of their names.

He incorrectly said that Russia was in de facto control of the territories and repeated assertions Putin has used to try to justify his occupation, saying that they were mainly Russian speaking and voted to join Russia. The international community denounced what Moscow called referendums as illegitimate and rigged.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Witkoff said that Putin had been fixated on Ukrainian land in their discussions. He said that Russia might get some of the regions, but not all.

Witkoff suggested that Ukraine might care less about some of the regions if they are Russian speaking.

"When you begin to look at those five regions, Russia, that you care about them, and by the way, you care about them too, Ukraine, if some of them are more Russian speaking, do you care less about that?" he said.

Zelensky has said he would never recognize Russian rule over any Ukrainian territory, a stance supported by the vast majority of Ukrainians.

Do the regions want to be part of Russia?

All of the regions voted for Ukraine to declare independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. A large number of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers live in the territories, but surveys have long shown that most residents of Ukraine, regardless of ethnicity or tongue, consider themselves citizens of Ukraine.

Many of those loyal to Kyiv left the regions after their occupation by Russia, and Moscow sent its own citizens to live there. Russia has carried out a violent campaign to Russify the territories, jailing and torturing thousands of civilians who resisted.

The prevalence of the Russian language in Ukraine, particularly the east and south, is a legacy of centuries of imperial control by Moscow that promoted it as the language of work and culture and repressed use of Ukrainian, often with violence.

Putin has long claimed that Russia has a right to invade other countries where Russian speakers live. But his invasions of Ukraine have had the opposite effect. Since Russia's initial invasion in 2014, the number of Ukrainians who consider Ukrainian their native language rose to 78% from 48%, while native Russian speakers fell to 6% from 31%, according to surveys by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, a Kyiv-based pollster.

Why is Russia focusing on the territories now?

Russia wants recognition of its full control of the territories as part of a final peace deal, but its demands are much broader. Moscow wants Ukraine to abandon efforts to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and to limit the size of its military.

Putin's ultimate goal, announced ahead of the 2022 invasion, is Russian control of Kyiv. That is why Ukraine's leadership sees Russia's talks with the U.S. as an effort to weaken support for Ukraine to ease the path toward that goal.

Write to James Marson at james.marson@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 17, 2025 23:00 ET (03:00 GMT)

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