‘It’s not real estate’: Ukraine fears Trump aims to sell Russian occupation as peace

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“It’s not real estate,” Zelenskiy said this week, as Trump’s property-guys-turned-peace-envoys relaunched his push for a deal. “You can’t just speak about two kilometres plus, two…

Perhaps peace talks no longer involve the unfurling of paper maps, but that doesn’t stop Ukraine having the uneasy feeling that its borders are on the negotiating table.

Delegations from Ukraine, Russia and the United States met for the first time in nine months this week in Abu Dhabi; then White House envoys visited Russian president Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin before flying to Dublin for discussions with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, on the sidelines of a European summit.

US president Donald Trump claims that a deal to end nearly five years of all-out war between Russia and Ukraine is near, and that it might “involve all of Europe” in new security arrangements and will leave Ukraine with “a little bit different shape”.

Putin wants Trump to give him something his army has failed to take – the one-fifth of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region that Kyiv still holds – and reintegrate Russia fully into the world economy with sanctions lifted and at least de facto, ideally de jure, recognition of Moscow’s rule over the 20 per cent of Ukraine that it has seized since 2014.

From Washington or Florida – and especially to self-described “real estate guys” such as Trump and his Ukraine envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner – it might look like a neat way to end a devastating war: give up land in exchange for peace.

But what of the people who live on that land – the three million or so Ukrainians surviving under occupation, and about 60,000 still clinging on in the shattered cities of Kramatorsk and Donetsk, the main Kyiv-held strongholds of Donetsk region?

According to personal accounts and reports by Ukrainian and international rights monitors, the rule of the gun outweighs the rule of law in Russian-run regions, and anyone falling foul of the occupying powers risks arbitrary arrest, torture and imprisonment – particularly for any show of loyalty towards Ukraine.

“They tied my arms and legs to a table and put a bag on my head.

“I didn’t understand what they were…

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