93rd Mechanized Brigade / EPA / Scanpix / LETA
Moscow is ruling out the possibility of freezing the Russia-Ukraine war along the current line of contact, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
“There were ideas like, ‘Let’s leave the line of contact as it is — this is Russia, this is Ukraine.’ [...] This will not happen, we have a Constitution based on the will of the people,” he said.
In September 2022, Russia announced the annexation of the self-proclaimed DPR and LPR, as well as the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions. Now, according to the Russian Constitution, these four regions are part of Russia — and therefore cannot be separated from it.
Officially, despite the fact that none of them were fully under Russian control at the time of annexation, according to the legislation of the Russian Federation, all four regions are fully included in Russia according to their administrative boundaries. The Russian armed forces abandoned Kherson a few weeks after the annexation, and the eponymous center of the Zaporizhia region was never under Russian military control.
About 62.6 percent of Donetsk Oblast, 98.6 percent of Luhansk Oblast, 69.3 percent of Kherson Oblast, and 71.9 percent of Zaporizhzhya Oblast are currently under Russian control.
A cessation of hostilities along the conflict line and the creation of a peace agreement, leaving the occupied territories of Ukraine under de facto Russian control, are currently being considered as the main option for ending the war.
The Ukrainian government has previously agreed to freeze the conflict along the contact line. At the same time, Kiev has repeatedly stressed that in the event of a peace treaty, it will not recognize the territories occupied by the armed forces of the Russian Federation (including Crimea, annexed in 2014) as belonging to Russia and will continue to consider them occupied territories. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called this issue a “red line” in Kiev’s position. The Ukrainian Constitution, like the Constitution of the Russian Federation, does not provide for the possibility of giving up any part of the country’s territory.
Trump said there was no talk of lifting sanctions on Russia yet
US President Donald Trump said that the possibility of lifting sanctions on Russia as part of the negotiation process is not currently being considered, but did not rule out the possibility of doing so in the future.
“No, no one has lifted the sanctions yet. I think we will consider it at some point, but not yet,” Trump told reporters at the White House when asked about the possibility of lifting restrictions as part of the negotiations.
A week ago, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant said that a partial lifting of sanctions could be a topic of negotiations to end the war. At the same time, he noted that the US side could ease or tighten restrictions depending on Russia's readiness for dialogue. At that time, Bessant said that as part of Trump's plan to end the war, Washington was ready to tell Moscow: "Come to the negotiating table with a very clear message, and if necessary, we will tighten sanctions."
Around the same time, Bloomberg reported, citing sources, that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had assured European allies that the Trump administration would maintain sanctions at least until an agreement was reached to end the war. According to the agency, this happened immediately after talks between Russian and US representatives in Saudi Arabia.
Bloomberg described the US Secretary of State's promises at the time as "some relief" for Europe, which was worried that Washington's deal with Moscow would include an early lifting of sanctions, a serious blow to the EU's efforts to deprive Russia of money to wage war.
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