The Kremlin said on Wednesday that Russia would never agree to swap Ukrainian territory for territory in the Kurdish region held by Kiev.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the Guardian newspaper that he planned to offer Russia a direct territory swap to end the war, including offering the Ukrainian-held “pockets” of Kursk.
Kiev launched a lightning incursion across the border last August and seized parts of Kursk, from where Russian troops are still fighting to oust them.
“We will exchange one territory for another,” Zelensky said, adding that he did not know which part of the Russian-occupied territory Ukraine would seek back.
“I don’t know, we’ll see. But all our territories are important, there are no priorities,” he said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow categorically rejected all offers to trade territory.
“That is impossible. Russia has never discussed and will not discuss exchanging its territory,” he told reporters at a daily briefing.
President Vladimir Putin said in December that Russian troops would definitely expel Ukrainian forces from Kursk, but he declined to say when that would happen.
“Ukrainian units will be expelled from that territory. Anyone who is not destroyed will be expelled,” Peskov said.
Russia controls just under 20 percent of Ukraine, or more than 112,000 square kilometers, while Ukraine controls about 450 square kilometers of the Kursk region, according to battlefield maps, Reuters reported.
