The territory proposal by #Putin has renewed the possibility of friction between Washington & Kyiv, which Moscow would welcome after celebrating the Oval Office blowup between the American and Ukrainian leaders earlier this year.
“It’s a very smart ploy by Putin,” said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. Gabuev said the proposal could be a “poison pill” designed to weaken #Ukraine internally or get #Trump to walk away from #Zelensky if the Ukrainian leader refuses.
Ukraine’s Constitution bars ceding #territory other than through a nationwide referendum. A recent poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found that 78% of Ukrainians were against transferring territory controlled by #Ukraine to #Russia.
The Kremlin typically sees the #Donbas as comprising the Donetsk & Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine. Moscow has taken nearly all of #Luhansk, but despite trying for more than a decade, it hasn’t managed to wrest control of the #Donetsk region.