'Russia open to territory swap as part of peace deal'

President Vladimir Putin told some of Russia's top businessmen that he might be ‘open to swapping some territory controlled by Russian forces in Ukraine but that he wanted the whole of Donbas, the Kommersant newspaper reported.

- Reuters

Andrei Kolesnikov, the Kremlin correspondent for the Kommersant, one of Russia’s top newspapers, said that Putin briefed top businessmen on the details of the plan ata late-night Kremlin meeting on December 24.

“Vladimir Putin asserted that the Russian side is still ready to make the concessions that he made in Anchorage. In other words, that ‘Donbas is ours’,” Kommersant reported.

In essence, Putin wants the whole of Donbas but outside that area “a partial exchange of territories from the Russian side is not ruled out”, Kolesnikov wrote in the newspaper.