Ukraine Territorial Concessions Central To Long-Term Russian Plan

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The territories that Russia currently occupies, and claims, in Ukraine have varying strategic, economic and symbolic value for Moscow and Kyiv.

The areas with the greatest strategic value include Crimea and the territories on the shores of the Azov Sea, which provide Russia with a land corridor to Crimea.

The international recognition of Crimea as part of Russia, as apparently suggested under the terms of an agreement hashed out by Putin and Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff, could expand the areas of the Black Sea that Russia can claim to legally control.

This could then be used by the Kremlin as a launchpad for renewed attacks on Ukraine and to threaten NATO's eastern maritime flank in Romania and Bulgaria. Any permanent recognition of Russia's control of these territories is, therefore, unacceptable to Ukraine and its European partners.

Donetsk and Luhansk are of lower strategic value, compared with Crimea and the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. However, they do have economic value because of the substantial resources located there. These include some of the mineral and other resources that were the subject of a separate deal which the US and Ukraine concluded on April 30.

They also include Europe's largest nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia and a large labor force among their estimated population of between 4.5 million to 5.5 million people who will be critical to Ukraine's post-war reconstruction .

Beyond the strategic and economic value of the illegally occupied territories, the symbolism that both sides attach to their control is the most significant obstacle to any deal, given how irreconcilable Moscow's and Kyiv's positions are. For both sides, control of these territories, or loss thereof, is what defines victory or defeat in the war.

Putin may be able to claim that some territorial gains in Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022 are a victory for Russia. But even for him any compromise that would see Russia give up territory that it has conquered – often at exceptionally high cost – would be a risky gamble for the stability of his regime.

Anything less than the complete restoration of the country's territorial integrity in its 1991 borders would imply recognition of defeat in the war for Ukraine. This would critically threaten the stability of the Zelensky government, whose political program rests on exactly the premise of a return to the 1991 borders.

Long-term consequences

As a result, the Ukrainian leadership has become hostage to its own information strategy, which has placed the“return of all territories” at the top of the criteria for victory. This is a goal widely shared among Ukrainians, according to a poll conducted by the Razumkov Center in March 2025. But it will be hard to achieve.

Apart from the potential domestic fall-out from any territorial compromises that Ukraine may be forced to make, there is another reason why the territorial question has become so intractable.

Beyond any strategic, economic and symbolic value that the occupied Ukrainian territories hold from the Kremlin's perspective, control over territory has always been an instrument for Russia to pursue its broader geopolitical agenda of exercising influence over its neighbours – from Moldova, to Georgia, Armenia and Ukraine.