If the rumored land swap deal is to go ahead on Friday, Moscow would relinquish just 5% of the territory it occupies in exchange for recognition of over 60% of each region it claims, Kyiv Post has found.
US President Donald Trump has floated “some swapping of territories” ahead of his Friday meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Alaska to end the war.
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The phrase is misleading, to put it mildly, as all land reportedly up for discussion lies within Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders, with no Russian territory on the table.
Under the rumored plan, Ukraine would cede the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in full in exchange for Moscow’s withdrawal from the Sumy and Kharkiv regions. The front line elsewhere would likely be frozen, leaving Russia in control of occupied areas of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
Politically and morally, the deal would be a windfall for Moscow, granting it vast territory for minimal concessions.
Using frontline data from open-source map DeepState UA and Ukraine’s administrative borders, here’s a breakdown of control that explains why Kyiv has firmly rejected the proposals.
Political subtext
In late 2022, Russia staged illegal referendums in four Ukrainian regions and later incorporated them as Russian territories by the Constitution – even though it does not fully control them.
The four regions are the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions. Russia “annexed” Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014.
Russian Guided Bomb Strike Kills Three in Zaporizhzhia
Three days before the 2022 invasion started, Russia recognized the proxy states in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions it had helped create in 2014 before annexing them as Russian in the staged referendum in 2022.
Earlier in 2025, Russia had vowed to capture all four regions and refused to stop at the contact lines.
Overview of occupied territories
As of Tuesday, Aug. 12, Russia occupies approximately 114,443 square kilometers (44,187 square miles) of Ukrainian territory – or roughly 19% of all Ukrainian lands, Crimea included.
Of those, 43,969 square kilometers (16,977 square miles) were occupied prior to 2022, and another 70,474 square kilometers (27,210 square miles) were captured after 2022 – translating to 7.28% and 11.67% of Ukrainian lands, respectively.
Using DeepState’s data and open-sourced map of Ukraine’s administrative borders, Kyiv Post was able to create an overlay and determine the percentage of each region occupied as follows (with territorial waters excluded from the calculation):
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Kharkiv region — 4%
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Zaporizhzhia region — 73%
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Luhansk region — 99%
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Kherson region — 69%
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Donetsk region — 75%
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Sumy region — less than 1%
Due to shifting front lines and map conversion factors, figures may carry a slight margin of error. As military sources note, areas marked under Russian control may in some cases reflect only small infiltration groups rather than full occupation.
Here’s a breakdown of what is being occupied, region by region.
Kharkiv region (4%)
As of Aug. 12, Russian troops only control small pockets of land in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, namely around 82.6 square kilometers (31.9 square miles) around the settlement of Oliinkove and 114.4 square kilometers (44 square miles) around Vovchansk, both north and northeast of the regional capital Kharkiv.
The majority of the occupied areas, around 1,000 square kilometers (386 square miles), lie in its border along the Luhansk region, which includes the cities of Kupiansk and Lyman that serve as Ukrainian strongholds fending off Russian advances.
There’s also a small, negligible pocket with Russian presence near the border village of Zelene at just 0.45 square kilometers (0.17 square miles).
In total, Russia occupies approximately 1,271 square kilometres (490 square miles) out of the 31,400 square kilometres (12,100 square miles) of the region.
That said, the regional capital of Kharkiv has been a frequent target of Russian drone and missile strikes due to its proximity to the border, leaving locals little to no time to seek shelter before each impact.
Read more about Kyiv Post’s coverage on Kharkiv and the region here – and Vovchansk in particular here.
Zaporizhzhia region (73%)
The majority of the Zaporizhzhia region in southern Ukraine is under Russian occupation, including the city of Enerhodar, which hosts Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP).
Out of the region’s 27,183 square kilometres (10,495 square miles), approximately 19,750 square kilometres (10,495 square miles) is under Russian occupation.
Russia has captured the port city of Berdyansk and the regional hub of Melitopol at the onset of the 2022 invasion.
Despite the early advances made by Russian troops, the Zaporizhzhia front has been largely stagnant in recent months, with Ukraine retaining control over the regional capital Zaporizhzhia throughout Moscow’s invasion.
At present, there is no indication that the nuclear plant’s control will be returned to Kyiv under any peace deal.
Luhansk region (99%)
Moscow has effectively captured the entirety of the Luhansk region by 2025.
The only areas under Ukrainian control are pockets along the regional borders that Ukraine has liberated, including those near the settlements of Novoiehorivka and Hrekivska west of Izium from the neighboring Kharkiv region.
Kyiv also controls a stretch of land in the southern border of the region, north of the Donets River that runs through Ukraine and southern Russia.
Kherson region (69%)
The majority of Ukraine’s Kherson region – famous for its watermelons – is also under Russian control.
The Dnieper River, running east to west (and north to south) through the region, has become the de facto front line between Ukrainian and Russian forces, splitting the area into northern and southern halves, with the islands in between remaining intermittently contested.
Alongside Zaporizhzhia, the city of Kherson remains a regional capital outside Russian control, despite Moscow’s claims to the entire region. In the Donetsk region, Kramatorsk became the de facto capital after the city of Donetsk fell under Russian-backed rebel – and later direct-Russian – control.
Ukraine liberated parts of the region, including the regional capital, in November 2022 during a counteroffensive. Since then, Kherson has faced daily Russian attacks, with Moscow’s forces using civilians as drone training targets – prompting some to liken the city to a “human safari.”
As of Tuesday, about 18,510 square kilometers (7,150 square miles) of the region’s 28,461 square kilometers (10,990 square miles) remain under Russian occupation.
Due to the region being a gateway to occupied Crimea, Moscow is extremely unlikely to relinquish control over the parts it has occupied in any peace proposal unless it is made to do so.
Donetsk region (75%)
Russia has intensified assaults across the Donetsk region – once Ukraine’s industrial heartland – in recent months.
The region has witnessed some of the bloodiest battles of Moscow’s invasion, including the Battle of Bakhmut, which resulted in Kyiv’s withdrawal after the city was leveled to nothing more than rubble.
As of Tuesday, Pokrovsk, a key frontline city that serves as a logistics hub for operations in the region and a bastion to fend off further Russian advances towards cities such as Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, has been facing intensified Russian assaults ahead of Friday’s Alaska talks.
As noted above, Kramatorsk became the regional capital after the city of Donetsk fell to Russian-backed forces.
As of Tuesday, Russia controls roughly 19,900 square kilometres (7,680 square miles) of the region’s total 26,517 square kilometres (10,240 square miles).
Sumy region (less than 1%)
Russia’s hold on the northeastern Sumy region – the launching pad of Kyiv’s 2024 Kursk incursion into Russia – is minimal.
With the help of North Korea troops, Moscow has regained much of the lost ground in the Kursk region, with Kyiv retaining a limited foothold in the region. Moscow’s counteroffensive has also expanded into Ukrainian territory inside the Sumy region.
As of Tuesday, Russian troops occupied a small pocket of land bordering the Kursk region, amounting to roughly 210 square kilometres (81 square miles) of the region’s total 23,800 square kilometers (9,190 square miles).
As such, if Moscow were to withdraw from the Sumy and Kharkiv regions under the rumored deal, it would return only a small amount of territory to Ukrainian control while legitimizing its land grabs in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions – taking full control of the parts of Donetsk it has yet to capture and retaining most of the areas it occupies in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
It is a land grab, not a land swap.
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