White House releases Trump-Zelenskyy photo with occupied territory mapWhite House releases Trump-Zelenskyy photo with occupied territory map

The White House has released a photo of President Donald Trump explaining something to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office next to a large map of Ukraine, with the eastern part shaded in pink and illustrating the territory currently controlled by Russian occupation forces.

“Before leaving for a multilateral meeting with European leaders in the East Room of the White House,” the photo was captioned by Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino.

At the same time, the Ukrainian delegation also arrived for this meeting with a large map, presidential communications adviser Dmytro Lytvyn confirmed in a video.

According to the map presented by the American side, the photo of which is not very clear, it is claimed that on August 17, the Russian occupation forces controlled less than 1% in the Dnipropetrovsk region (the Ukrainian side denies losing control of any territory in this region), in Mykolaiv and Sumy - 1% each, in Kharkiv - 4%, in Zaporizhia - 72%, in Kherson - 73%, in Donetsk - 76% and in Luhansk - 99%.

Earlier, President Trump and other representatives of the American side stated the possibility of exchanging territories as part of a peace agreement. After Trump's meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska on August 15, Reuters reported that the Russian Federation had expressed its readiness to give up the captured territories in the Sumy and Kharkiv regions, but instead demanded that the Armed Forces of Ukraine completely withdraw from the areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions that the Russian forces were unable to capture.

At the same time, the Ukrainian side, supported by European partners, insists that the current contact line should be the starting point for negotiations, and categorically denies the possibility of any occupied Ukrainian territory being recognized by Russia de jure.