Four years into Putin’s war, the Ukraine peace push is stalling
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A power sub station damaged by a recent Russian drone and missile strike in Odesa, Ukraine, on Feb 18.
PHOTO: REUTERS
KYIV – US President Donald Trump’s efforts to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are stalling with peace talks deadlocked
Allies say the US is pushing for a deal before Mr Trump hosts the 250th anniversary celebrations of American independence on July 4.
But there is no indication that Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to reach an agreement that does not grant his central demands, according to senior European and NATO officials.
The talks have already blown through several deadlines and even some US officials admit privately that they see no signs Mr Putin is willing to budge from his maximalist positions, the people said.
The White House did not respond to a Bloomberg News request for comment.
Russia’s full-scale invasion
That is a fair cry from Mr Putin’s initial plan for his special military operation to remove the leadership in Kyiv within days.
While Mr Trump returned to the presidency in January 2025 pledging to bring a swift end to Europe’s worst conflict since World War II, more than a year of US-led diplomacy is foundering on the question of Russian demands for territory in eastern Ukraine and the issue of control of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.
Three rounds of trilateral talks so far in 2026 in Abu Dhabi and Geneva have failed to deliver a resolution.
Ukraine’s European allies have been largely sidelined from the negotiations, even as they are mostly funding weapons purchases to aid Kyiv’s defence after Mr Trump wound down US military assistance.
Moscow and Washington are effectively in a contest to see who will blink first in the negotiations led by US special envoy Steven Witkoff and Mr Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, said a senior NATO official familiar with the discussions.
That would mean either Russia giving in on some of its red lines, which include full control of the lands in the eastern Donbas region or the US abandoning Ukraine.
While talks between the three sides remain constructive, they are effectively deadlocked, the person said, asking not to be identified discussing sensitive issues.
Mr Trump has repeatedly voiced frustration with the slow pace of negotiations, often oscillating between criticising Mr Putin and pressing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to make concessions.
Despite massive military casualties
Moscow is also refusing to cede control of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant that it has occupied since early in the invasion.
“Russia is fighting for its future,” Mr Putin told military officers at an award ceremony in the Kremlin on Feb 23 to mark the country’s Defender of the Fatherland public holiday.
Ukraine is holding firm, too.
Relentless Russian missile and drone attacks targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure
“My message to Putin is simple: I am ready to meet,” Mr Zelensky said in an interview with German public broadcaster ARD, according to a transcript published on Feb 23. “We must end the war. Period.”
Ukraine rejects Russian demands to withdraw from its fortified areas of eastern Donetsk and has suggested a ceasefire along existing front lines.
The US is proposing to establish a free economic zone in the area along with security guarantees for Ukraine against any future Russian attack.
There has been no final framework on the fate of the nuclear plant, though the US has said the sharing of power will be a critical part of any agreement.
While the US has proposed a three-way split, Kyiv rejects any sharing with Russia though it has said the Americans would be free to divide their share with Moscow.
One concern among Kyiv’s allies is that Mr Putin may agree to a ceasefire that would allow Mr Trump to claim success in ending the war, while Russia continued a campaign of sabotage, hybrid warfare or election interference aimed at destabilising Ukraine, according to European diplomats familiar with the issue, who asked not to be identified because the matter is not public.
“As long as Putin is in power, Russia isn’t paralysed by widespread protests, and there is at least some money left in the budget for weapons, the war will continue,” Ms Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said in a Feb 18 article.
“The Kremlin will not make significant concessions even if faced with a protracted financial and economic crisis.”
Mr Trump has expressed interest in joint US-Russia business deals if the war is brought to an end.
The Kremlin has also set out proposals for a wide-ranging economic partnership with the Trump administration, while Mr Putin’s envoy Kirill Dmitriev has pitched projects he claimed are worth more than US$14 trillion (S$17.7 trillion), or almost six times the size of Russia’s gross domestic product, once sanctions over the war are lifted.
Russian territorial gains have amounted to less than 1 per cent of Ukraine’s land area over the last three years, according to data from DeepState, a conflict mapping service that cooperates with Ukraine’s Defence Ministry.
Meanwhile, wide swathes of the front line have been transformed into areas dominated by drone warfare, making it very difficult for conventional troops to stage offensives to gain more land.
“The strategy of war is now aimed not so much at seizing territory, but depleting enemy resources,” former Ukrainian army commander-in-chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi, who is now Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK, told a meeting at London’s Chatham House think-tank on Feb 23.
Ukrainian army commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi visited the southern front line and described the situation as difficult, according to a post on Telegram on Feb 23.
His forces have regained control of nearly 400 sq km of territory since the end of January, he said.
Ukraine also inflicted more battlefield losses in January than Moscow was able to replace, according to assessments from Western officials.
“We’ve seen a casualty uptick which is disproportionate in scale,” British Armed Forces Minister Al Carns said. “And some of the economic situation in Russia is starting to become quite precarious, especially as we move into summer.”
Mr Witkoff told Fox News in an interview on Feb 21 that he and Mr Kushner were hopeful of “good news in the coming weeks” on proposals for a peace deal that he said could bring Mr Putin and Mr Zelensky to a summit, possibly alongside Mr Trump.
“It really is a silly war,” Mr Witkoff said. “They are fighting over, they are arguing (over) this territory. Everyone throws the word dignity around, but what does dignity get you if you have that amount of killing there?” BLOOMBERG
