The "Legitimate Interests" in Russia's Retaining Ukrainian Territory

"It was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold up."

"I think President Putin will make peace. I think President Zelensky will make peace. We'll see if they can get along." 

"I think Putin is tired of it. I think they're all tired of it. But you never know. We're going to find out about President Putin in the next couple of weeks. That I can tell you." 

U.S. President Donald Trump

 

"We, of course, respect the position of the American administration, which sees the need for a speedy end to military actions."

"We would like to move to resolving all issues by peaceful means."

Russian President Vladimir Putin 

 

"We are ready for any format."

"But when it comes to high-level meetings, it is necessary to prepare them in the most thorough way at all previous stages, so that the summits do not lead to a worsening of the situation, but rather mark the end of the negotiations that we are ready to continue."

"We cannot accept the proposal to address security and collective security issues without Russia's involvement. This will not work. We have repeatedly explained that Russia does not exaggerate its interests, but we will firmly and decisively protect our legitimate interests."  

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov  

Still from video  CNN

 

President Trump, in the wake of his Alaska meeting with Vladimir Putin appears to have changed his mind over a ceasefire; it is no longer the critical issue of the moment; he leaps now to the issue of a complete peace agreement to finally end the conflict in Ukraine. Putin, explained Trump in talks with European allies, reiterated his determination to retain Donetsk and Luhansk, the regions that distinguish the Donbas. In exchange for clear agreement to formally transfer the Donbas to Moscow, he is prepared to discuss the disposition of Saporizhzhia and Kherson, and a front line freeze.

 

Needless to say, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has entirely other plans for the Donbas. Little clarity surfaced in the aftermath of the Alaska summit with respect to follow-up steps, leaving President Trump's commitment to additional meetings the only focal point for the present. The briefings given European officials on the exchanges left a vacuum whether Trump viewed Putin's Donbas demands as acceptable.

 

A public summary of the situation has yet to be issued, other than Trump's abrupt reversal on a ceasefire. With no ceasefire on the table, of course Russia's attacks on Ukraine continue unrestrained. And while those attacks continue, it remains to be seen how peace talks could conceivably be undertaken. Under those circumstances, with Ukraine being incessantly bombed, any such 'peace' talks would be construed as Kyiv surrendering to Moscow's ultimatums.

 

It seems obvious to the European coalition supporting Ukraine's position that it would not surrender one metre of Ukrainian territory to the Russian beast; that Trump and his push for further negotiations reveals a certain level of sympathy for the Russian position which is that Moscow has no interest in a temporary truce but is adamant that a long-term settlement must be reached that respects the Kremlin's interests.

 

Sergei Lavrov (left) with Putin. Moscow’s view is that: ‘To discuss security guarantees seriously without Russia is a road to nowhere.’ Photograph: Sean Gallup/EPA

 

"Russia seems to be prepared to conduct the negotiations based on the so-called line of contact and not the administrative boundaries", noted German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. President Zelensky's previous refusals to withdraw from the 30 percent of the Donetsk region under Ukrainian control is firm. Surrendering any Ukrainian territory is unthinkable and contrary to Ukraine's constitution. Besides which the territory could be meant as a Russian staging ground for ongoing attacks.

 

Major European leaders overlooked addressing whether a peace agreement was preferable to a ceasefire, stating instead that they "welcomed President Trump's efforts to stop the killing in Ukraine, end Russia's war of aggression, and achieve just and lasting peace". This is the way that every nation retains a working relationship with the Trump administration; outwardly praising the president's initiative, while privately groaning in frustration.

 

A lesson hard learned in obsequiousness, Zelenskyy stated he had enjoyed a "long and substantive" conversation with Trump, that they would "discuss all of the details regarding ending the killing and the war" in their subsequent Monday meeting, and they did do that, to a degree. However, the scoring ball remains in Putin's court; clearly Trump feels that Ukraine should be prepared to sacrifice part of its territory to suit Putin's imperative.

 

The while, Zelenskyy took the opportunity to reiterate the importance of European leaders' involvement "to ensure reliable security guarantees together with America". 

 

Territory swaps weren't discussed during Monday's session, according to NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte. "We have not discussed that today (August 18), because everybody is clear, including the president, that when it comes to territory, that is the Ukrainian president, who has discussed this in the trilateral and then probably more conversations after that, with the Russian leadership."

 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meets with President Donald Trump and European leaders in the East Room of the White House in Washington, August 18, 2025.

Ukrainian Press Service/AFP via Getty Images

 

The Abraham Accord

 Benjamin Netanyahu, Jerusalem, August 13, 2020. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

"That's what peace for peace looks like."           "It will be a warm peace because it will be based on co-operation in the realm of economics with an entrepreneurial economy like ours with vast economic capabilities, with big money looking for investment channels."  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

"Peace is not an empty word used to normalize crimes and oppression. Peace is the outcome of justice."                                                                                     "Peace is not made by denying Palestine's right to exist and imposing an apartheid regime. Apartheid is what Netanyahu means by 'peace for peace'."               Palestinian politician Saeb Erekat

Erekat made those bitter accusations with a straight face. Mostly because he believes what he's said. That Israel, a Jewish state founded on historical heritage geography for a global ingathering to ensure that Jews will never again be subjected to pogroms or genocidal horror without defences, is an Apartheid state. A Jewish state within which citizenry has been extended to 20% of the population who are not Jewish; Arabs, Druze, Kurds, Bha'i, Christians and others who make Israel their home.

The Palestinian Territories, on the other hand, are Judenrein. Should Jews wander erroneously into Palestinian territory their lives would be forfeit. That's terrorism, that's racism, that's Apartheid. Israel's sequential governments over the past 70 years have never denied statehood to the Palestinians. Over the years one effort after another to bring Palestinian authorities to the bargaining table, making painful concessions to satisfy their demands, have failed.

For the quite simple reality that the Palestinian negotiators on behalf of their vision of 'Palestine from the river to the sea' envision Israel gone; their agenda is the denial of Israel's right to exist, the polar opposite of Erekat's mendaciously fallacious claim. Those viperous accusations resonate, however, in a Palestinian population that has been inundated and steeped in such reversals of truth from childhood to adulthood.

Israel previously signed two other peace agreements; one with Egypt the other with Jordan. Peace, in the absence of war when the two Arab nations understood they will never extirpate Jews from their very own heritage geography and in a sense of practicality accepted Israel's enduring presence. Friendly relations? Never; cold, distant and combative. Egypt's President al-Sisi a notable exception in his realization that Egypt has much to gain, along with his belief that Islamic scholars should be more responsible in their edicts.

Israeli, U.S., Emirati flags, Abu Dhabi International Airport REUTERS

The United Arab Emirates' willingness to sign a peace agreement with Israel ventures into different society-to-society territory, extending warmth, helpfulness and a wish to explore deeply useful relations between the two nations. An attitude reciprocated by Israel in enthusiasm and exuberance to be finally accepted, with the hope that more Sunni Arab nations will follow the UAE's lead. Israel possibly retains a modicum of uncertainty while the UAE appears to have none in their surrender to the inevitable whereas Israel has been the subject for all of its modern-day existence of neighbourly hostility and violence.

The Palestinian Authority reaction to the words of friendship passing between the UAE and Israel, sincere, authentic and of great relief to both great nations, is 'disappointment' leading to the usual Palestinian malice against those it believes have abandoned its 'cause' of avoidance of 'normalization' with Israel, since normalization is code for acceptance and there is no acceptance by the PA rulers of Israel as a Jewish state established in perpetuity. And in their 'disappointment' Palestinians violently reject what they cannot change, cast insults and vicious recriminations.

US Presidential Adviser Jared Kushner (left) and US National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien () disembark from the El Al’s airliner, which is carrying a US-Israeli delegation to the UAE following a normalization accord, upon landing on the tarmac on August 31, 2020, in the first-ever commercial flight from Israel to the UAE at the Abu Dhabi airport. Behind them is Israeli National Security Adviser Meir Ben Shabbat. (Karim SAHIB / AFP)

Israel and the UAE are on track henceforth to discuss matters such as economic, scientific trade and cultural cooperation; openly heartfelt with a view of enriching each culturally and socially, and expanding trade to advance their future prospects for prosperity together, banishing forever fears of negative hostility. The Palestinians seek to build upon the framework of hostile relations with Israel and to extend that hostility to all those abroad who sympathize with the deliberate rancid, racist charges against Israel's intentions.

As for Hamas, the usual rote rejection of all things Israeli from a terrorist group whose mandate is to achieve the destruction of the Jewish state in emphasizing that the ground-breaking flight from Israel to the UAE, the El Al plane flying through Saudi airspace with permission, a catastrophe for Palestinians, that the flight represents a "stab in the back of the Palestinian people, a prolonging of the occupation and a betrayal of the resistance of the (Palestinian) people", declared Hamas.

US President's senior adviser Jared Kushner, US National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien and Israeli National Security Advisor Meir Ben-Shabbat disembark a plane upon landing at Abu Dhabi International Airport Image Credit: REUTERS

Lifting the 'occupation' would be simple enough. The need for Israeli military personnel to be forever on alert would be nullified by the simple act of renouncing the intention to destroy Israel. By surrendering to the reality of a nation that will not be dislodged from its historical roots. By laying down the arms that Hamas has assembled in a vast cache against the final assault on Israel to destroy it as intended. Without the need to constantly be on guard in the defence of its citizens and its territory, the IDF would withdraw its presence, and the 'occupation' ceases.

Without the will and determination to bargain for peace the Palestinians are once again and forever declaring their intention to destroy Israel, not live alongside it peacefully and with prospects for a prosperous future for both peoples. Meanwhile the UAE must cope with its own trials brought on by its decision to befriend Israel. Two people were killed in Abu Dhabi when a KFC and Hardee's restaurants were blown up; the symbolism clear enough; U.S. franchises in UAE territory; targets for vengeance by those dissatisfied with the current trend toward peace.

The US-Israel delegation is received. Image Credit: WAM

Israel, as a Vassal State of the European Union

"Annexation of Palestinian territories, whatever the perimeters, would seriously throw into question the parameters to resolve the conflict." 
"An annexation decision could not be left without consequences, and we are examining different options at a national level and also in co-ordination with our main European partners."
Jean-Yves Le Drian, French Foreign Minister

"As a life-long friend, admirer and supporter of Israel, I am fearful that these proposals will fail in their objective of securing Israel's borders and will be contrary to Israel's own long-term interests." "[Annexation] would put in jeopardy [the gains Israel has made in recent years in improving relations with the Arab world]."
"I profoundly hope that annexation does not go ahead. If it does, the UK will not recognize any changes to the 1967 lines, except those agreed between both parties."
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson

The Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim, the largest in the occupied West Bank, is seen with a view the Jerusalem skyline in the background. (Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images)

"The Trump administration and Netanyahu are no longer in perfect sync. … Kushner has always seen this as a peace plan, and it’s become clear that Bibi sees it more like an annexation plan."
"The administration is invested in other equities it would like to balance. It would like to keep Gulf Arabs happy. And it understands that there’s fierce criticism of this [annexation] plan, not just in the Arab world but in Europe and in the U.S."
"You can’t have diplomats in Washington saying this about a more, you know, realistic Palestinian state and then have people in Israel saying [there will] never be a Palestinian state."
"Both cannot be true."
David Makovsky, fellow, Washington Institute for Near East Policy

"[The administration] wants to show that this is being done responsibly. They want to minimize the blowback from various parties. That gave a veto back to Gantz, which he didn’t get in the coalition agreement itself." 
"At the moment, there is not a compatibility among all the parties."
Dan Shapiro, former U.S. ambassador to Israel, fellow, Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), Tel Aviv University

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says settlements - on land claimed by Palestinians - will become part of Israel  AFP

The international community is never tardy in giving their studied opinions on when, why and how Israel must proceed to satisfy their judgement in dealing with the Palestinians in the never-ending search for a peace settlement that would launch the formal recognition of a nascent Palestinian state to be established alongside that of the Jewish state. The beginning and end of the continued refusals on the part of the Palestinian Authority to accept all reasonable offers proffered by Israeli negotiators is its denial of Israel's existence as a Jewish state.

A state re-established in the ancient Judean homeland of Jews. Jews finally making good on the prayer "Next year in Jerusalem", a fervent wish and determined aspiration of the diaspora, to return to the place of Judean indigenous heritage. The interminable exile with its wide dispersion and its never-ending oppression, discrimination, threats, hate campaigns and pogroms, culminating in the European Holocaust led by Nazi Germany of Europe's Jews slated for an organized mass extermination through a general consensus of anti-Semitism, leavened with contempt and supporating hatred.

Israel however, is a reality, the return of far-flung diaspora Jews to the land of Zion, recapturing the landscape, memory and promise of the past. The Palestinians returned. Only to discover that squatters had lifted the nomenclature that identified them as Jewish Palestinians living in their ancient geography, swapping it for Arab Palestinians claiming the land to be their ancient geography, dismissive of archaeological proof, of Biblical proof, of vibrant affirmative narratives of ancient coevals validating Jewish presence on the land.

Though Europe was complicit with Nazi Germany's Final Solution, Europe now feels entitled to dictate to what is left of world Jewry -- which after almost a century has been unable to replace the numbers that were annihilated -- how they must proceed lest they 'disappoint' the expectations of the world community. Continually placating the rage of Palestinian Arabs in the pretense that a peace agreement is reachable despite that one after another has been presented, ceding most Arab demands only to start all over again with contemptful dismissal of the offers by the PA.

Which, discreetly removed from non-Arab attention, incites Palestinians to demand no less than the entire narrow land mass upon which Israel sits, to be 'restored' to Palestinian rule. There never was Palestinian rule. The Arab League, which might have conferred upon the Palestinians their version of statehood, never felt the urge to deliver statehood and sovereignty to Palestinians. But Israel must defer and do just that, according to UNRWA and the EU, welcoming the 7 million descendants of the original 700,000 Arabs who fled temporarily with the intention to return in triumph after the assembled Arab armies destroyed  Israel -- only the intention failed.

This is a Jewish state, moreover, that unlike a proposed Palestinian state that made it clear it had no intention of permitting the presence of any Jews among them, accepts almost two million Arabs as citizens of Israel, where democratic elections place Arab Palestinians as lawmakers in the Israeli Knesset, despite their sympathies with Fatah and Hamas, two terrorist groups whose mandate is the destruction of Israel.

Mind, the Arab villages located within Israel, given the opportunity would balk at being ceded as territory to be ruled by the Palestinian Authority, in exchange for a similar amount of land carved out of [Judea and Samaria] the 'West Bank' occupied by Jewish settlements being transferred to Israeli sovereign rule. A reasonable compromise slammed by the Palestinian Authority which is devoted to the rousing war cry of "Palestine, from the river to the sea", obliterating the presence of Israel altogether.

What seemed a reasonable goal to achieve that would complement the existence of both Israel and 'Palestine' in a much-vaunted idealistic 'two-state-solution' that Europe still focuses on despite continual PA denials of reasonable solutions under the impression that the Palestinians are entitled to all their demands, while the Israelis must capitulate to all those of the Palestinians prepared to sacrifice nothing in the interests of establishing peace, is no longer feasible, in the wake of never-ending refusals to bargain for peace and hence a legitimized Palestinian state.

For the demand of the PA that all UNRAWA-recognized Palestinian 'refugees' must be welcomed into Israel, while the world fails to recognize, and sees no reason why it should, a like number of Jews exiled from Arab countries in 1948, their heritage and properties confiscated, where in a fair arena of justice also should be recognized as refugees and reparations offered them in compensation for loss of possessions and their past status as Jewish Arabs, by an Israel-hostile Arab world, we have the ultimate double standard.

Palestinian artists draw murals depicting the Dome of the Rock and the West Bank as part of an awareness campaign against Israel's West Bank annexation plans, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on July 1. SAID KHATIB/AFP via Getty Images