Sept. 5—Another window has opened into the type of discussion that Russian President Vladimir Putin had with U.S. President Donald Trump during their Alaska discussion. At yesterday’s press conference, Putin was asked: “When Russia and the United States’ efforts to achieve a peaceful settlement in Ukraine are being discussed, the formula ‘security guarantees in exchange for territories’ is increasingly mentioned. Does this correspond to what you talked about with Trump in Alaska?”

While Western commentators have portrayed the upshot of the Alaska meeting as one in which Kyiv is asked to trade territory for its future security, Putin refreshed the discussion, saying:

“No, we have never raised the issue in this way, nor have we ever discussed it in such terms. Security guarantees are a natural necessity, as I often stress. We proceed from the fact that every country should have them, a security system, and Ukraine is no exception. But this is not connected to any swaps, especially those of territories.

“To be honest, and I want to emphasize it, we are fighting not so much for territories as for human rights—for the right of people living in these territories to speak their native language, to live within their culture and within the traditions passed down from previous generations, from their fathers, grandfathers, and so on. This is the main point.

“If these people expressed their will to become part of the Russian Federation as part of democratic electoral procedures, such as referenda, this choice must be respected. This is democracy. I want to remind those who keep forgetting it. Moreover, this fully complies with international law. The very first articles of the UN Charter explicitly affirm the right of peoples to self-determination.

“However, we do not tie the issue of territories in with security guarantees. Of course, one can argue that these topics are related, but we do not directly tie them together. This issue was not even framed like that during the discussion in Anchorage.”

The fact is, according to sources involved in the Alaska summit, there is no trade off between "land" and "security." However, as one source put it, Ukraine must agree to allow for the rights of its Russian-speaking citizens, who, have lost those rights as a result of actions by the neo-Nazi Banderite movement and its control over the Zelenskyy government. This subversion of their cultural rights must be reversed. Then, there is the question of the former Ukrainian oblasts and the Crimea, which are now part of the Russian Federation. What is up for discussion is how to reflect the reality of the battlefield, in which areas (other than the Crimea, which historically has been more associated with Russia than Ukraine) of Ukraine where Russian speaking populations have been liberated by force of arms, who were under further attack by Ukrainian forces, and which are now part of Russia and whose borders can be adjusted. This is complicated and requires detailed discussion and negotiation, as was discussed in outline in Alaska, the sources report..