Zelenskyy says Ukraine won't give up Donbas region to Russia

Daryna Krasnolutska and Olesia Safronova, Bloomberg News on Aug 12, 2025

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he won’t cede the eastern region of Donbas to Russia and pushed for Kyiv to be included in talks as the U.S. and Russian leaders prepare to meet Friday.

Vladimir Putin is demanding that Ukraine give up the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that together form Donbas as a condition to unlock a ceasefire and enter negotiations over a longer-term peace accord.

But such a decision would require Zelenskyy to order troops to withdraw from 9,000 square kilometers (3,474 square miles) of Ukrainian territory, handing Moscow a victory that its army couldn’t achieve militarily for more than a decade.

“For Russians, Donbas is a bridgehead for a future new offensive,” Zelenskyy told reporters on Tuesday in Kyiv. “Any of territorial issues cannot be separated from security guarantees.”

U.S. and Russian officials were working toward an agreement on Ukrainian territories for a summit meeting between Donald Trump and Putin in Alaska, Bloomberg News reported last week, citing people familiar with the matter. Ukraine and its European allies have been pushing for a halt to the fighting and freezing the current frontline as a first step before talks on a more enduring settlement.

Trump on Monday downplayed expectations for his meeting with Putin, casting it as a “feel-out meeting” and saying he would confer with Ukrainian and European leaders after the sitdown. The U.S. president, who pledged to end the war quickly after taking the office, said he expected to either outline to them the contours of a deal that included land swaps negotiated with Putin, or that he did not believe a peace deal could be brokered.

“I don’t know what will be discussed without us, they have probably a bilateral track,” said Zelenskyy, who wasn’t invited to the summit. “The Ukrainian issue must be discussed by three sides at least.”

Europe should be also part of the talks as Ukraine wants to join the European Union, he added.

Zelenskyy, along with the leaders of France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Poland and Finland, will hold a call with Trump and Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday ahead of the summit with Putin. EU leaders said this week that any peace agreement must “respect international law, including the principles of independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity,” adding that international borders must not be changed by force.

Demanding Concessions

Russia has stepped up its airstrikes on Ukraine in recent months and its army is advancing in Ukraine’s eastern regions in a slow grinding war. Zelenskyy said Moscow wants to create a narrative that “Russia’s advancing and Ukraine’s losing” ahead of the Alaska summit.

“In this month, they will try to demonstrate advances in all directions to politically press Ukraine, demanding concessions,” Zelenskyy said. “We understand this and our army is preparing for this.”

The Ukrainian president said Russia is gearing up for a new military offensive after Aug. 15 by relocating around 30,000 troops to Ukraine’s southern region of Zaporizhzhia and the Donetsk region from Ukraine’s northern Sumy region.

“We think they will be ready with those brigades before September,” Zelenskyy said, adding that additional Russian troops may be ready in November.

Ukraine still is outnumbered by Russian artillery at a ratio of 1:2.4, he said. But it has the advantage of First-Person View drones, which allow pilots to monitor the battlefield in real time, at a ratio of 2.4:1 that can increase to 2.5:1 if allies help finance production, the president added.

Kyiv has also agreed with the U.S. to purchase American weapons worth $1 billion to $1.5 billion a month.

“Tomorrow, we will speak with the Europeans and the U.S. side,” Zelenskyy said. “I will deliver a message that all sensitive issues about Ukraine must be discussed in the presence of Ukraine.”

Meanwhile Tuesday, Ukraine claimed a strike on a key helium plant in Russia amid intensified attacks on energy infrastructure.

Ukrainian military intelligence drones struck the plant located close to Orenburg, at some 1,200 kilometers (746 miles) from the nation’s border with Russia, according to a Ukrainian official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter. The facility produces a critical component for missiles, space and aviation industries, said the official, who didn’t give more details on possible damage.

It wasn’t possible to independently verify Ukraine’s claims, and Gazprom PJSC, owner of the facility, didn’t immediately reply to a request for a comment.

Since the start of August, Ukraine has launched a series of drone attacks on Russia’s energy facilities, with operations at three oil refineries being disrupted in response to recent barrages from Moscow.