Ukrainian and Russian negotiators began two days of trilateral talks with US mediators in Abu Dhabi on 23 January evening, with the territorial dispute over Donbas emerging as the central, and so far irreconcilable, issue.
A source close to the Kremlin told Reuters that Moscow interprets what it calls the "Anchorage formula." The formula, which Russia claims was established during President Trump’s August 2025 summit with Vladimir Putin in Alaska, would grant Russia control over all of Donbas while freezing current front lines elsewhere in eastern and southern Ukraine.
What is the Anchorage formula?
Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Anchorage on 15 August. What was achieved during the meeting remains unknown, but attacks on civilians and combat operations continued.
Back then, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the former Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, said that Russia wants to continue military operations against Ukraine while simultaneously engaging in endless negotiations with the US.
According to Zaluzhnyi, Russia used the Soviet-era Gromyko's method in talks with Trump. Named after Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, the tactic relies on dragging out talks, exhausting interlocutors, and dominating conversations until the other side gives in.
On Friday, journalists directly asked Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov what the so-called “Anchorage platform” means, BBC reports.
“We, of course, do not want to go into the details of the provisions being discussed publicly. Therefore, I cannot and will not tell you what specific formula is meant by the ‘Anchorage formula,’” he said curtly.
The problem is that at the Alaska summit, the sides were unable to reach an agreement, and Trump remained dissatisfied with the meeting.
In the weeks following those talks, the US president spoke of his “disappointment” with Putin, considered the transfer of Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, and even approved the first sanctions against Russia of his second term.
What Russia demands
At the same time, Peskov stated that Russia's insistence on Ukraine ceding all of Donbas is "a very important condition." This includes roughly 5,000 square kilometers (1,900 square miles) of Donetsk Oblast that Ukrainian forces still control after four years of attritional warfare.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed the territorial dispute would dominate talks. "The question of Donbas is key," he said in a WhatsApp media chat Thursday, adding that discussions would focus on "how the three sides see this."
But Zelenskyy has repeatedly rejected ceding land that Russia has failed to capture militarily. Speaking at a 15 December press conference, he stated:
"We do not want to give up our Donbas... Neither de jure nor de facto will we recognize Donbas—its temporarily occupied part—as Russian."
The Anchorage shadow
The August 2025 Trump-Putin summit in Alaska ended without a formal agreement, but Russian officials have since invoked it as a baseline for negotiations.
The "Anchorage formula" represents Moscow's interpretation of what was discussed—a framework Kyiv never endorsed.
Since that summit, Russian forces have continued grinding advances in the Donbas while escalating attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure, plunging millions into darkness during the harshest winter of the war. Russia has struck Ukrainian energy infrastructure 256 times since the heating season began, leaving Kyiv facing a 7-gigawatt power deficit.
Security guarantees ready
Despite the territorial impasse, Zelenskyy said progress has been made on other fronts. He told reporters that a deal on US security guarantees for Ukraine is "ready" and awaiting only Trump's signature on a specific date and place.
The talks, led by Admiral Igor Kostyukov of Russian military intelligence and Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council Secretary Rustem Umerov, mark the first trilateral meetings involving US mediators since the war began.
A previous face-to-face meeting in Istanbul in 2022 briefly raised hopes for a settlement before Moscow added new demands.
When asked about Russia's proposal to use nearly $5 billion in frozen Russian assets in the US to fund reconstruction in Russian-occupied territory, Zelenskyy dismissed it as "nonsense."
"Of course, we will fight (to use these assets for Ukraine), and it is absolutely fair regarding the use of all frozen assets."
