Russia, explained.
Local residents outside a post office damaged by a Russian strike in the town of Bilozerske, Donetsk region, Ukraine, 12 August 1015 (Genya Savilov/AFP via Getty Images)
Talk of “land swaps” misses the point and sets a dangerous precedent for international order.
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Trump’s Alaska summit with Putin ignores what Ukraine’s territory really meansTrump’s Alaska summit with Putin ignores what Ukraine’s territory really means
Donald Trump needs to understand that talk of a “swap of land” between Ukraine and Russia resulting from his upcoming meeting with Vladimir Putin cannot be achieved by redrawing lines on a map. For Ukraine and its people, this land is where they built their homes, planted gardens with fruits, sowed fields with wheat and sunflowers and swam in rivers and seas before the war. Ukraine must not be seen just as “a territory” or reduced to mere resources.
As the world waits for the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska on Friday, even after the announcement of the high-stakes meeting, Russia continues to bomb Ukraine’s peaceful infrastructure, including train stations and frontline cities, and seeks to advance further into Ukrainian territory. While there is talk about the “advantages” of a possible settlement, in reality this extremely dangerous situation for Ukraine is a result of Russian aggression. That should not be forgotten.
In April, US special envoy Steve Witkoff, speaking on Fox News, referred to “these so-called five territories,” the Ukrainian regions of Crimea, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk, and Luhansk. There is nothing “so-called” about them. Now, ahead of the meeting in Alaska, Trump refers vaguely to “some swapping, changes in land” between Ukraine and Russia and that “we’re going to get some back, we’re going to get some switched” and “to change the lines, the battle lines”. Trump will argue that a deal is the only way to stop the killing, but an immediate Russian withdrawal would do the same.
It would be alarming for Ukraine’s future to be decided without its presence at the table.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was quick to reject suggestions of the territorial exchanges, not to mention the lack of any guarantees. And rightly so. Because what would a “land swap” actually mean for the Ukrainian state and its people? How will Ukraine be protected and with what security guarantees, and from whom? What kind of international order will we enter with such “peace negotiations” as the reward for an act of aggression?
The rallying cry for talks must continue to be “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine”, yet Zelenskyy will not be in Alaska. It would be alarming for Ukraine’s future to be decided without its presence at the table. Reparations from Russia to Ukraine cannot be overlooked, not only for the past three years but a decade-long war of attrition since 2014 with the illegal annexation of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine. It is estimated that post-war reconstruction will cost Ukraine $524 billion, but the lost lives of Ukrainians do not have a price.
The United States, under a mineral deal signed in April 2025, committed to “a peace process centred on a free, sovereign, and prosperous” Ukraine. This is a welcome sentiment but must go beyond analytical reviews about defending Ukraine’s airspace or Marshall Plan-scale investments in the country. Russia must be held accountable.
The fear is palpable that the talks in Alaska will seek to foist unjust outcomes for Ukraine. While prognostications abound, the consequences are not abstract for millions of Ukrainians. Trump likes to talk about holding the right cards in a negotiation – but Ukrainian lands are not bargaining chips to be freely given away to an aggressor.
About the author
Iryna Skubii
Iryna Skubii is the inaugural Mykola Zerov Fellow in Ukrainian Studies at the University of Melbourne.
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