Trump on Monday again failed to persuade Putin to accept a ceasefire in Ukraine as a first step toward a peace deal. But what might a deal even look like, and what would it mean for the Ukrainian people?
One of the few explicit peace proposals is a US outline reportedly seen by Reuters last month. It asks Ukraine to accept de jure recognition of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and de facto recognition of its occupation of large parts of several oblasts in the country’s east. On Monday, Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that Russia is demanding Ukrainian troops abandon five oblasts as a precondition not for peace, but for a ceasefire and the opening of negotiations.
Before the war, those oblasts were home to about 11 million Ukrainians. To put that into context, we visualised some broadly comparable populated areas in three European countries and one US state, in each case starting from the north-east corner. The shaded areas represent populations of about 11 million French, British, Italian and US citizens.