{"id":1308602,"date":"2025-10-19T19:55:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T16:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/in-the-white-house-witkoff-demanded-that-ukraine-hand-over-donetsk-region-to-russia-citing-the-language-issue\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T19:55:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T16:55:14","slug":"in-the-white-house-witkoff-demanded-that-ukraine-hand-over-donetsk-region-to-russia-citing-the-language-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/in-the-white-house-witkoff-demanded-that-ukraine-hand-over-donetsk-region-to-russia-citing-the-language-issue\/","title":{"rendered":"In the White House, Witkoff demanded that Ukraine hand over Donetsk region to Russia, citing the \u201clanguage issue\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

US presidential envoy Steve Witkoff, during a meeting at the White House, insisted that Ukraine hand over control of the Donetsk region to Russia, arguing that the region is predominantly Russian-speaking. This position provoked a sharp reaction from the Ukrainian delegation.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is reported by The Washington Post<\/a> .<\/p>\n

Journalists noted that Witkoff exerted pressure on the Ukrainian side during President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Washington. He stated that the transfer of the Donetsk region could allegedly be a “compromise” to end the war.<\/p>\n

At the same time, journalists called the argument about the “Russian-speaking” nature of the region typical of Kremlin rhetoric, which Ukrainian and European officials regard as manipulative.<\/p>\n

The article notes that many Ukrainians, including Zelensky himself, grew up in a Russian-speaking environment, but this was never a sign of pro-Russian views. After the start of the war and the occupation of Crimea, more and more citizens are switching to the Ukrainian language as a manifestation of national identity.<\/p>\n

“Witkoff was the White House’s chief negotiator with the Kremlin ahead of the Anchorage meeting, which European officials say was the result of his misinterpretation of Russia’s demands,” the authors of the publication noted.<\/p>\n

According to the publication, during his last phone conversation with Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded that Kyiv completely relinquish control over the Donetsk region. Only under this condition is Moscow supposedly ready to end the war, two senior officials familiar with the negotiations told reporters.<\/p>\n

Analysts emphasized that the Donetsk region is of strategic importance for Ukraine, as this region serves as a key barrier to the further advance of Russian troops deep into the country.<\/p>\n

By the way, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that Ukraine will not make any concessions to Russia<\/a> and will continue to strengthen cooperation with international partners in the defense and energy sectors.<\/p>\n

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin, during<\/a> a phone call with Donald Trump this week, demanded that Kyiv hand over full control of the Donetsk region to Moscow as a condition for ending the war against Ukraine.<\/p>\n

The results of the meeting between Trump and Zelensky<\/a> have already been reported. The leaders discussed security guarantees for Ukraine, the supply of weapons, including Tomahawk missiles, and the prospects for ending the war. By the way, \u201cPryamiy\u201d has collected for you a selection of memes<\/a> that are circulating on the Internet after the meeting between Trump and Zelensky.<\/p>\n

Recall that earlier, Trump avoided a direct answer to the question of whether Ukraine should cede territory<\/a> to achieve peace with Russia.<\/p>\n

Also follow \u201cPryamim\u201d<\/strong> on Facebook<\/a> , Twitter<\/a> , Telegram<\/a> , and Instagram<\/a> .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US presidential envoy Steve Witkoff, during a meeting at the White House, insisted that Ukraine hand over control of the Donetsk region to Russia, arguing that the region is predominantly Russian-speaking. This position provoked a sharp reaction from the Ukrainian delegation. This is reported by The Washington Post . Journalists noted that Witkoff exerted pressure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":1219134,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76871,76872,76875,76885],"class_list":["post-1308602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-2","category-news-feed","category-other-news","category-policy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1308602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1308602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1308602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1219134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1308602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1308602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}