WP: Putin in conversation with Trump demanded full control over Donetsk region

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin during a telephone conversation with US President Donald Trump on October 16 demanded that Ukraine give up control of the Donetsk region as a condition for ending the war. This was reported by The Washington Post with reference to two unnamed officials familiar with the content of the conversation.

Putin's focus on Donetsk region shows he is not backing down from previous demands, despite Trump's optimism about a deal, officials say.

The US President did not publicly comment on Putin's demand that Ukraine give up control of the region.

The sources added that Putin also said during the conversation that he was allegedly ready to surrender parts of two other regions of Ukraine that he had partially seized, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, in exchange for full control over Donetsk region.

This is a somewhat less ambitious territorial demand than the one he made in August at the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska. Some White House officials presented this as progress, according to one official briefed on the phone call with Putin.

Ukrainians are unlikely to see it that way, said another official, a senior European diplomat.

"It's like selling them your own leg for nothing," he said.

Neither the White House nor the Kremlin responded to journalists' request for comment.

• On August 12, 2025, Zelensky said that Defense Forces would not leave Donbas as part of the so-called "exchange of territories" that Trump had been talking about.
• On September 3, the president said that a powerful part of the Ukrainian defense line is concentrated in Donbas, and that Russia has not managed to occupy even 30% of one region in more than three years of full-scale invasion.