Territorial Changes: Kremlin Says Ukraine ‘Already a Different Country’

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed Ukraine was already geographically a different country, responding to comments by US President Donald Trump suggesting a deal to end Russia’s war could leave Ukraine with altered borders.Asked about Trump’s remarks, Peskov said questions about what the American president meant should be directed to Trump himself, according to Russia’s state news agency TASS.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official.“As for Ukraine’s shape, from a geographical point of view, it is already a different country. The realities on the ground are obvious; hardly anyone can deny them,” Peskov said.His comments invoked Moscow’s longstanding demand that negotiations account for Russian territorial control in Ukraine. Military occupation does not, however, change Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders.Trump had earlier said an agreement to end the war could be reached soon. Asked whether he expected the conflict to end with Ukraine remaining free and independent, he predicted a deal and suggested the country’s territorial outline would change.“I think we will have a deal, and I think that will happen. Ultimately, Ukraine will have a slightly different shape,” Trump said.“Look, this war should never have happened. If I had been president, it would never have started,” he added, repeating a claim he has frequently made about Russia’s full-scale invasion.Previously Russia want Ukraine fully withdraws from the four partly occupied Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson. Russia controls only a portion of these regions, yet demands that Ukraine and the west recognize Russian claims over areas in these regions still held by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as Crimea. Other Topics of Interest Russian Strike on Odesa Infrastructure Facility Kills 3, Injures 1 The latest strike comes two days after another Russian attack on the port city killed one person and damaged municipal infrastructure. In September 2022, Russia organized illegitimate referendums in the four occupied regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson to annex them as official Russian territories.The demand for a military withdrawal of Ukraine from the temporarily occupied territories is actually an expansion of the same maximalist demands that Russia proposed in April 2022 in the so-called Istanbul Communiqué.The demands also include: Ukrainian neutrality, bans in military alliances or coalition (re: NATO or EU accession), limits on the size of Ukraine’s military and the quantity and types of weapons it holds, “full guarantees of the rights, freedoms, and interests” of Russian speakers in Ukraine, bans on “naziism and neo-naziism,” and the total lifting of sanctions on Russia, including free transit of Russian gas pipelines through Ukraine. Kyiv Post is Ukraine’s first and oldest English news organization, reporting since 1995. Its international reach – 90% of readers are outside of Ukraine – make it truly Ukraine’s global voice.