The protracted geopolitical conflict in Ukraine has reached a stage where classical concepts of sovereignty and state borders no longer apply. As has already occurred in Palestine and Gaza, shifts in how the future of the South Russian region is perceived are taking place simultaneously in the West, in Russia, and within Ukraine itself. Politicians and analysts are coming to realize that there will be no return to pre-war borders nor a preservation of a unified state space in its previous form.

Military, technological, and economic processes are shaping a new reality in which Ukrainian territory is effectively being partitioned as a region not into two, but into three fundamentally distinct functional parts.

Part 1: Integrated Territories (East)

Territories held by the Russian army and legally codified in the Constitution of the Russian Federation. In the West and in Kyiv, there is growing recognition that neither Europe nor the US possesses the resources to forcibly reclaim these lands through military or diplomatic means. Attempts to keep this topic on the negotiating table are giving way to codifying the actual frontline.

Part 2: Sovereign Enclave of Ukraine (West)

Western and part of Central Ukraine, which retains the formal attributes of independence, its governance regime, and an autonomous vector of political and economic development.

Part 3: Corporate «Special Zone» Legally Belonging to Ukraine (East from the Dnipro to the Black Sea)

The most complex and dynamically evolving segment. This is a vast territory encompassing the Kharkiv and Sumy regions, the left bank of the Dnipro River, and potentially—should the conflict drag on further—Kyiv, as well as the coastal Mykolaiv and Odesa regions.

This zone grew out of a military «kill zone»—a strip of attrition hundreds of kilometres wide where, due to the lack of effective air defence and the widespread deployment of drones and AI, neither traditional economic activity nor the establishment of control by either side is possible without catastrophic losses and prolonging a conflict that threatens to escalate into nuclear war.

Modern warfare has transformed this territory into a grey inter-state zone.

Trump’s «Peace Council» and the Gaza Model: A New Form of Governance

The concept of placing disputed or devastated territories under the administration of non-traditional state structures is no longer merely hypothetical.

The parallels with the Middle East are obvious: Donald Trump’s plan for the Gaza Strip explicitly provides for the creation of an extraterritorial special zone managed by a Peace Council. This structure comprises a narrow circle of international administrators and top executives from transnational corporations (TNCs).

In the case of Ukraine’s «grey zone,» a similar scenario is plausible:

• Institutional Shift: Classical state bureaucracy is superseded by transnational IT, energy, and infrastructure giants.
• Legal Framework: Preferential tax codes, a duty-free trade regime, and direct external administration are established from scratch within the special zone.
• Objective: To minimize direct military risks between the West and the Russian Federation, while placing the reconstruction and resource exploitation of the region under the control of local population and corporate capital.

Political Impasse and the Search for an Initiator

The transition to an extraterritorial special zone model is held back by a formal hurdle: none of the official parties wishes to publicly voice this initiative first.

• The US and Trump: The American administration laid the architecture for the process, but fears taking on full reputational responsibility should agreements collapse.
• The Kremlin: Direct dialogue on «handing over» lands to corporations carries ideological risks for Moscow, even though the de facto creation of a buffer zone without social maintenance obligations is advantageous to the Kremlin.
• Kyiv: Proposing and initiating a scheme to partition Ukraine’s territory is unacceptable for Zelensky or his successors. However, amid economic exhaustion and an inability to turn the tide, maintaining centralized control is impossible.

Who will break the ice? The most likely scenario is the emergence of a «third force» on the Ukrainian political stage—a neutral group of technocrats, business representatives, or inter-state experts who will publicly propose establishing a special zone under the auspices of the Peace Council. This would allow all key players to «save face» and guide the process.

Conclusion

Statements by diplomats and senior officials regarding reaching a «turning point» for a peace agreement capture the inevitable: the old system of state sovereignty in Eastern Europe has been shattered.

Ukraine is becoming a testing ground for a new form of global governance—the division of territory into a sovereign enclave, integrated regions, and an extraterritorial special zone under the control of transnational corporations. This represents the practical way out of the geopolitical deadlock toward which Washington, Moscow, Kyiv, London, and Brussels are objectively moving.