{"id":28754,"date":"2025-08-13T11:54:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T06:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/?p=28754"},"modified":"2025-08-13T11:54:24","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T06:09:24","slug":"zelensky-rules-out-ceding-donbas-region-as-russians-make-fresh-advance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/zelensky-rules-out-ceding-donbas-region-as-russians-make-fresh-advance\/","title":{"rendered":"Zelensky rules out ceding Donbas region as Russians make fresh advance"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p>BBC News\u00a0 : President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Ukraine would reject any Russian proposal to give up the Donbas region in exchange for a ceasefire, warning it could be used as a springboard for future attacks.<\/p>\n<p>Zelensky was speaking ahead of a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>Trump has said any peace deal would involve &#8220;some swapping of territories&#8221; and it is believed one of Putin&#8217;s demands is that Kyiv surrenders the parts of the Donbas it still controls.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile Russia&#8217;s troops have continued their summer offensive, making a sudden thrust near the eastern town of Dobropillia and advancing 10km (six miles) in a short period of time.<\/p>\n<p>Zelensky admitted the advance had taken place in &#8220;several spots&#8221; but said Kyiv would soon destroy the units involved in the attack.<\/p>\n<p>While downplaying Russia&#8217;s advance, he added it was &#8220;clear to us&#8221; that Moscow&#8217;s objective was to create a &#8220;certain information space&#8221; before Putin meets Trump that &#8220;Russia is moving forward, advancing, while Ukraine is losing&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>No official details have emerged on what demands Vladimir Putin could make when he meets Donald Trump in Anchorage on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>The Donbas &#8211; made up of the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk &#8211; has been partly occupied by Russia since 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Moscow now holds almost all of Luhansk and about 70% of Donetsk but speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Zelensky reaffirmed that Ukraine would reject any proposal to leave the Donbas.\u00a0Ukraine&#8217;s borders must not be changed by force, EU leaders say<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If we withdraw from the Donbas today &#8211; our fortifications, our terrain, the heights we control &#8211; we will clearly open a bridgehead for the Russians to prepare an offensive,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Zelensky has previously insisted that Ukrainians would not &#8220;gift their land to the occupier&#8221;, and pointed to the country&#8217;s constitution, which requires a referendum before a change in its territory.<\/p>\n<p>In his nightly address on Tuesday, Zelensky also said Moscow was preparing new offensives on three parts of the front &#8211; Zaporizhzhia, Pokrovsk and Novopavlov areas.<\/p>\n<p>Last week Trump said there would be &#8220;some swapping of territories to the betterment of both&#8221; Russia and Ukraine &#8211; sparking concern in Kyiv and across Europe that Moscow could be allowed to redraw Ukraine&#8217;s borders by force.\u00a0Russia currently controls just under 20% of Ukrainian territory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BBC News\u00a0 : President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Ukraine would reject any Russian proposal to give up the Donbas region in exchange for a ceasefire, warning it could be used as a springboard for future attacks. Zelensky was speaking ahead of a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Alaska [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17761,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28754"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28754"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28757,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28754\/revisions\/28757"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}