Fyodor Lukyanov is Chairman of Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, the oldest Russian NGO providing expertise in the foreign policy field, and editor-in-chief of the Russia in Global Affairs journal published in Russian and English with the participation of Foreign Affairs. As head of Russia in Global Affairs since its founding in 2002, he greatly contributed to making this journal Russia’s most authoritative source of expert opinion on global development issues. He is also research director at the International Valdai discussion club, and a member of presidium of Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC). Fyodor Lukyanov is research professor at Higher School of Economics in Moscow.
Thomas Graham is a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a cofounder of the Russian, East European, and Eurasian studies program at Yale University and sits on its faculty steering committee. He is also a research fellow at the MacMillan Center at Yale. He has been a lecturer in global affairs and political science since 2011, teaching courses on U.S.-Russian relations and Russian foreign policy, as well as cybersecurity and counterterrorism. Graham was special assistant to the president and senior director for Russia on the National Security Council staff from 2004 to 2007, during which he managed a White House-Kremlin strategic dialogue. He was director for Russian affairs on the staff from 2002 to 2004.
There really is no room for compromise as suggested by Thomas Graham( an independent Donbass or unification with Russia). Putin would( and should) find this completely unacceptable, since his goal is to have a stable Ukraine on his border( not to acquire Ukrainian territory). The situation in Crimea was entirely different for historical and cultural reasons.