Paul Adams
Speculation has swirled over whether the Trump-Putin summit will result in the map of Ukraine being forcibly – and fundamentally – altered.
Russia has laid claim to vast parts of Ukraine since 2014, when President Vladimir Putin made his first move.
At the time, in the space of a short few months, Moscow carried out the relatively bloodless occupation and annexation of the Crimean peninsula.
But that was followed by a Russian-backed separatist movement in the eastern Donbas region – specifically the two regions, or "oblasts", known as Donetsk and Luhansk.
Ukraine after 2014 and before the start of the 2022 full-scale invasion
Ukraine lost around 14,000 soldiers and civilians during this period.
But in February 2022, Putin launched his full-scale invasion. Russian troops quickly reached the outskirts of Kyiv and seized huge swathes of the south, including big chunks of two more oblasts, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
The war has ebbed and flowed ever since. Russia now controls rather less territory - down from about 27% in the spring of 2022 to around 20% now. In the east, Russian forces are advancing, but very slowly and at great cost.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine says an unconditional ceasefire is needed now. European allies also insist on a halt in fighting. US President Donald Trump says that is what he has been trying to achieve.
But in the run-up to his Alaska summit with Putin, Trump has talked instead about territorial swaps. That has sent shockwaves across Kyiv and Europe.
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