Joel Gunter
BBC, Kyiv
Days before he met with Vladimir Putin in Alaska, Donald Trump mentioned what he called a “territorial exchange” as a condition for peace.
For Ukrainians, it was a confusing term.
What territory could be exchanged?
Will Ukraine be offered a part of Russia in exchange for the land Russia seized by force?
As Volodymyr Zelensky prepares to travel to Washington to meet with Trump on Monday, there is likely no element of “exchange” in the US president’s thoughts.
Instead, he reportedly plans to pressure Zelensky to hand over the entire eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in exchange for Russia freezing the rest of the front line - a proposal Putin made in Alaska.
Lugansk is already almost entirely under Russian control.
But it is estimated that Ukraine has managed to hold on to about 30 percent of Donetsk, which includes several key cities and fortifications, at the cost of tens of thousands of Ukrainian lives.
Both areas - collectively known as Donbass - are rich in minerals and industry.
Handing them over to Russia now would be a "tragedy," says Ukrainian historian Yaroslav Hrytsak.
"It's Ukrainian territory," says Hrytsak.
"And the people from these areas, especially the miners, played a huge role in solidifying Ukrainian identity."
The area has also produced "famous politicians, poets and dissidents," he says.
"And the refugees won't be able to go home now if it becomes Russian."
At least 1,5 million Ukrainians have fled Donbas since the Russian aggression began in 2014.
It is estimated that more than three million of them live under Russian occupation.
Another 300.000, it is estimated, live in areas still under Ukrainian control.
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In the areas closest to the front, life is already a dangerous struggle for them.
Andrei Borilo, a 55-year-old military chaplain in the hard-hit city of Sloviansk, said in a telephone interview that shells fell near his house over the weekend.
"The situation here is very difficult," he said.
"There is a feeling of resignation and abandonment. I don't know how much strength we have left to endure. Someone has to protect us. But who?"
Borilo followed the news from Alaska, he said.
"I blame Trump for this, not Zelensky. But they are taking everything away from me, and that is treason."
Zelensky constantly repeats that Ukraine will not hand over Donbas in exchange for peace.
And confidence that Russia will stick to any agreement - rather than simply using the annexed land for future attacks - is very low.
For this and other reasons, about 75 percent of Ukrainians oppose any formal cession of land to Russia, according to a poll by the Kiev-based International Institute of Sociology.
But Ukraine is also deeply exhausted by war.
Hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians have been killed or wounded since the full-scale invasion began.
People yearn for an end to suffering, especially in Donbass.
"You ask me about the surrender of the Donetsk region, and I don't measure this war in kilometers but in human lives," says Yevgeny Tkachev (56), an ambulance rescuer in the Donetsk city of Kramatorsk.
"I'm not prepared to give tens of thousands of lives for a few thousand square kilometers," he says.
"Life is more important than territory."
For some, it will all come down to that in the end.
Earth or life.
That leaves Zelensky "at a crossroads with no good path ahead of him," says Vladimir Ariev, a Ukrainian lawmaker from the opposition European Solidarity party.
"We do not have enough forces to continue the war indefinitely," Ariev said.
"But if Zelensky cedes this land, it would not only be a violation of our constitution, but it would also bear the hallmarks of treason."
And yet, in Ukraine, it is not clear by what mechanism such an agreement could be reached.
Any formal surrender of the country's territory requires parliamentary approval and a popular referendum.
This would most likely be a de facto handover of control, without formal recognition of the territory as Russian.
But even in that case, the process is not clear enough, says Ukrainian MP Ina Sovsun.
“There is no real understanding of what that procedure should look like,” she says.
"Does the president just sign the agreement? Does the government have to do it? Parliament? There's no established legal procedure because, you know, the framers of the constitution didn't think of this."
Things may become clearer after Zelensky talks with Trump in Washington, the first visit by a Ukrainian leader to the White House since the disastrous White House standoff in February 2025.
Amid the discontent that followed the Alaska meeting, a glimmer of good news emerged for Ukraine.
Trump changed his stance on security guarantees after that meeting, indicating that he was ready to join Europe in offering Ukraine military protection from future Russian attacks.
Polls indicate that for Ukrainians, security guarantees are an absolutely crucial part of any potential agreement on territory or anything else.
“People in Ukraine will accept various forms of security guarantees,” says Anton Grushchevsky, director of the Kiev-based International Institute of Sociology, “but they demand them.”
For Yevgeny Tkachev, an ambulance worker in Kramatorsk, a territory exchange can only be considered with "real guarantees, not just written promises."
"Only then, more or less, am I in favor of giving Donbas to Russia," he says.
"If the British Royal Navy is stationed in the port of Odessa, then I agree."
And as various paths to peace are proposed and considered, sometimes in the deal-making style favored by President Trump, there is a risk of losing sight of the real people directly affected - people who have already lived through a decade of war and who could lose even more now in exchange for peace.
Donbas was full of Ukrainians from all walks of life, says Vitaliy Drintsia, a Ukrainian historian.
"I'm not just talking about culture, about politics, about demographics, we're talking about real people," he says.
Donetsk may not have the cultural reputation of a place like Odessa, says Drincija.
But it was Ukraine.
"And every corner of Ukraine, regardless of whether it has any great cultural significance or not, is Ukraine," he says.
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