For more than a decade, the industrial heartland of eastern Ukraine has been the focal point of intense battles and diplomatic disputes between Kyiv and the Kremlin. Now it could be on the table in peace talks with the United States.

Under the proposed Russian deal, Kyiv would fully withdraw from the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions in return for a Russian pledge to freeze the front lines in the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, the sources said.