The Financial Times reported that Putin had told Trump that “he could freeze the rest of the frontline if his core demands were met” and the message had been relayed directly by Trump in his call on Saturday.
AFP’s source said US officials had said that if Russia’s demands were met then “Putin would not continue the offensive in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions so there would be a kind of freeze there”.
“But de facto it all will depend on Putin’s word of honour,” the source said.
Several months into its invasion of Ukraine, Russia in September 2022 claimed to have annexed all four Ukrainian regions even though its troops still do not fully control any of them.
Russian forces now occupy almost all of the Lugansk region and most of the Donetsk region, including their regional capitals.
That is not the case for Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, where the main hubs are still under Ukrainian control.
Russia previously annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.
