After weeks of peace talks and high-level meetings, Russia and Ukraine remain far apart on an issue central to bringing the war to an end: Territory.
The Kremlin has made clear that it wants to absorb all of an eastern area of Ukraine known as the Donbas. That includes a 2,500-square-mile area of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions that Russia has not been able to capture after nearly four years of fighting.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reiterated on Monday his longstanding opposition to ceding territory to Russia.
More than 200,000 Ukrainians live in the area of Donetsk that Ukraine still controls, which includes the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.
The cities have strategic value for Ukraine: They have served as a Ukrainian military hub since 2014, and are among the most heavily fortified parts of the front.
Mr. Zelensky, who made the comments in an online chat with journalists after he met with the leaders of Europe’s largest economies, added that the United States was pushing for Ukraine to “compromise” on Moscow’s territorial demands.
A version of a U.S.-backed peace plan last month reflected many of those demands, including that Ukraine would have to cede to Russia all of Donetsk and Luhansk, beyond what Russia had captured in fighting. As a part of that plan, Russia would keep the parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions it occupies.
It was broadly rejected in Ukraine as capitulation, rewarding Russia for its invasion, and peace talks have since languished.
Ahead of a state visit to India earlier this month, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia reiterated that if Ukraine didn’t agree to cede the eastern Donbas region to Russia, then its troops will “liberate these territories by force.”
In 2022, Russia claimed to annex the four regions — Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson — including territory it had not seized and still does not hold. As recently as June, Russia’s proposed cease-fire conditions demanded the complete withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from those regions.
But the U.S.-backed peace proposal would give to Russia only Ukrainian-controlled areas in Donetsk, which is part of the Donbas region, in addition to Russian-held land.
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