Russia asserts that its demands remain the same: a complete withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the territories that Moscow claims

On Wednesday, Russia affirmed that its stance on ending the war in Ukraine remains the same as when President Vladimir Putin outlined his conditions last year: the full withdrawal of Kyiv's military from major Ukrainian territories and the abandonment of its NATO ambitions. Putin is set to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday in Alaska, marking the first U.S.-Russian summit since 2021, to discuss efforts to resolve the conflict. Trump has suggested that both sides will need to exchange some of the territories they currently control to aid this process. Currently, Russia occupies 19% of Ukraine, which includes all of Crimea, the entire Luhansk region, over 70% of Donetsk, as well as significant parts of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, along with small areas of the Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv, and Dnipropetrovsk regions. After some media outlets reported that Washington believed Putin was open to negotiating his territorial claims, Alexei Fadeev, the deputy spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, was asked by journalists if Russia's position had changed. "Russia's position remains unchanged, and it was articulated in this very hall just over a year ago, on June 14, 2024," Fadeev stated, referring to a speech given by Putin at the foreign ministry on that date.