NYT: Ukraine agreed to cede territory in March 11 peace talks

For the first time since the outbreak of the war in 2022, Ukraine indicated a willingness to cede a significant portion of its territory to pursue a peace agreement.

According to sources cited by The New York Times (NYT), Ukrainian officials, following President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s instructions, agreed during talks with U.S. representatives in Riyadh on March 11 to relinquish roughly 20% of the country’s territory. The negotiations marked a historic and politically sensitive shift in Kyiv’s stance.

The talks took place in a Jeddah hotel, where U.S. and Ukrainian officials examined a detailed map outlining the line of contact between Ukrainian- and Russian-held areas. U.S. officials pressed Ukraine on its “absolute bottom lines” — the minimum conditions necessary for the state to survive.

Initially, Ukraine agreed to an immediate 30-day ceasefire, a proposal advanced by then-President Donald Trump. The pivotal moment, however, came when Ukrainian representatives began marking territorial concessions on the map. Areas discussed included the eastern oblasts of Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, along with the strategic Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and the Kinburn Spit, which controls access to Mykolaiv’s shipyards.

This was “the first time that Zelensky, through his people, said, in order to reach peace I’m willing to give up 20 percent of my country,” a U.S. official said.

Trump’s advisers reportedly noted that Ukrainian negotiators were now “in the box,” highlighting the unprecedented nature of the concessions on the table.

By Vugar Khalilov