00:00Yeah, cautious optimism, isn't there, Ben, at the moment.
00:03But I find it interesting because reports in the Russian newspaper Comisant claim Putin has indicated that Moscow could actually be open to swapping territory as part of a Ukraine deal.
00:17You mentioned the sticking points there. So what do you make of this?
00:21Well, exactly. What they're looking for is for some diplomatic formula, because on the one hand, Putin's been insisting that the Ukrainian forces leave the Donetsk region, the part of the two regions in Donbass.
00:35Russians only control about 85 percent of it, and they want Ukrainians to withdraw from that last 15 percent.
00:42However, this is the sticking point. Zelensky has insisted that he's not going to give up any land at all.
00:49And moreover, recent polls in Kiev show that the Ukrainian population is willing for him to make compromises to get peace, but they're dead against giving up any land that's not occupied by the Russians.
01:02So it's very tricky. So what we're looking for is some sort of diplomatic formulation that basically allows him to give up land without, you know, saying the word withdrawal.
01:11And land swaps have been suggested as one way of doing this, that, you know, he gives, Zelensky gives up the key Donetsk piece of land that Putin's after, but at the same time receives in return more occupied lands.
01:27And then maybe he can sell that to the public. You know, this is classic diplomacy, realpolitik.
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