Ukraine proposes creating 'Donnyland' to satisfy Trump

 Ukrainian officials pitched naming part of the Donbas region “Donnyland” in an effort to court Donald Trump.

The proposed enclave, about three to four times the size of Greater London, was to be framed as an accomplishment to sway the US president towards tilting his support away from Moscow, according to The New York Times.

One Ukrainian negotiator reportedly even used ChatGPT to draft a national anthem and a green and gold flag for the imagined mini-state.

While never formalised in official documents, the concept surfaced repeatedly in talks, pitched partly tongue in cheek.

Kyiv’s negotiators believed that attaching Mr Trump’s name to a patch of territory might nudge his camp to push back against Moscow’s sweeping territorial demands.

With an area of roughly 40 by 50 miles, “Donnyland” would be twice the area of the Lake District, making it significantly bigger than existing demilitarised zones.

Negotiators also pitched an alternative postwar setup known as the “Monaco model”, after the city-state on the French Mediterranean.

Like Monaco, it imagined a compact, partially self-governing entity, which could derive advantages from operating as an offshore economic zone.

They floated the possibility of the US president’s Board of Peace, established to oversee the Gaza peace plan, playing a role in administering the zone.

The Trump administration has faced criticism for what many perceive as a tilt towards Moscow.

It has appeared to attribute responsibility to Ukraine for the full-scale war, sharply reduced military aid and pressed Kyiv to concede to Moscow’s maximalist terms.

Little is left of the proposed area, once Ukraine’s vibrant industrial heartland, which has been decimated by fighting.

However, Vladimir Putin has refused to end his invasion unless Russia is granted ownership of the entire Donbas, made up of the coal and mineral-rich regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, while Volodymyr Zelensky has said that this is a red line for Kyiv.

The Kremlin’s forces occupy all but a tiny sliver of Luhansk and control around three-quarters of Donetsk, but Ukrainian officials have said Moscow would need to expend another two to four years, and potentially more than a million more troops, to conquer the stronghold.

According to Mr Zelensky, Washington has previously pushed for Kyiv to withdraw its troops and establish a “free economic zone” in the area currently under its control.

The Ukrainian president said it was not clear who would govern this territory, which Ukrainian officials claim still houses 190,000 people.

It also encompasses Ukraine’s fortress belt – the heavily fortified cities of Kostiantynivka, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk – which acts as a defensive barrier against Russia’s advance.

Talks between the US, Russia and Ukraine have stalled as the US grapples with its own turbulent war in the Middle East.

The last trilateral summit between Moscow, Kyiv and Washington took place in mid-February, less than two weeks before the US and Israel began striking Iran.

Ukrainian officials had previously said that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the US envoys, were due to visit Ukraine shortly after Easter, but the visit has not yet transpired.

Mr Witkoff has visited Moscow eight times and, according to The New York Times, the pair are planning a fresh trip soon.

On Monday, Mr Zelensky chastised the emissaries earlier this week for their frequent visits to Russia. “It’s disrespectful to come to Moscow and not Kyiv, it’s just disrespectful,” he said in an interview with a Ukrainian outlet.

The Donbas proposal points to a global foreign policy shift whereby governments feel compelled to flatter the personal vanity of the mercurial Mr Trump in order to ensure US backing.

When Washington brokered a peace deal between Azerbaijan and Armenia, for example, the 27-mile transit corridor connecting Azerbaijan’s mainland with the Nakhchivan exclave was called the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity.

It mimics developments at home. Earlier this year, the White House announced a new “Trump class” of warships.

Mr Trump also attempted to add his name to the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and said he once planned to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of Trump”.