Kyiv: Putin to show Trump a map of staged ‘frontline breakthrough’
Russia’s top general has prepared a map showing routes for sabotage-and-reconnaissance teams that Moscow intends to portray as proof its army can rupture Ukraine’s defenses and make a rapid push toward Donetsk, according to Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD).
Valery Gerasimov, chief of the Russian General Staff, prepared a map of the Donetsk region for Vladimir Putin to present to Donald Trump at their meeting in Alaska in a bid to persuade the United States that Russia can break through the front, despite lacking such capability in reality, Andriy Kovalenko, who heads the CCD, said.
Gerasimov’s map marks the planned routes for these sabotage-and-reconnaissance groups (DRGs), Kovalenko said.
The aim, he added, is to convince the U.S. that DRG movements demonstrate Russia’s ability to collapse the front and execute a rapid thrust toward Donetsk - “as if everything has already been decided.”
“Of course, no one plans to clarify where the DRGs number 3–5 people, and where the issue is securing and holding sectors of the front,” the CCD chief said.
In reality, the frontline situation is difficult, and Russia lacks the capability to reach Kramatorsk and Sloviansk quickly, he said.
“They also have not occupied Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka, which their plans envisioned taking back in 2024,” Kovalenko added. .
Earlier, it emerged that Putin is preparing “historical materials” for the Alaska meeting to argue that Ukraine is an “artificial state.”
In addition, Russia’s FSB is spreading claims together with the Defense Ministry about the alleged destruction of production of Ukraine’s long-range Sapsan missiles, which Ukraine supposedly planned to use to strike Moscow, Minsk and strategic targets deep inside Russia “with NATO’s permission,” a narrative Ukraine’s CCD has debunked.
The Trump–Putin meeting is scheduled for August 15 at Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska.
Trump has previously suggested a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine could involve “some exchange of territories.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has rejected any territorial concessions to Russia, stressing that Ukraine will not give up its land.
Zelensky reiterated that position on August 12 after online talks with Trump.