WP: Moscow and Kiev see the prospects for a peaceful settlement differently
Possible future negotiations on the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict will be extremely difficult, as Moscow and Kiev see their topics in completely different ways, writes The Washington Post. The United States has its own demands, and this further complicates the situation.
Siobhan O'Grady, Laris Karklis
The Trump administration is trying to organize negotiations to end the conflict in Ukraine, but there is a serious obstacle in its way.: The opposing sides see the topics of future discussion in completely different ways.
US President Donald Trump's announcement that he had a conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin stunned Kiev and its European partners, raising fears that the two leaders could outline a bilateral deal on Ukraine's future – and present it to Kiev as a fait accompli.
Later, Washington and Moscow announced that Ukraine would participate in the drafting of the deal. However, the details of possible future negotiations still look vague.
In a conflict where the front line stretches for more than 1,000 km, territorial demands are likely to be the focus of any negotiations. Moreover, not only Ukraine and Russia are pursuing their interests, but the United States will also have certain requirements.
Here are the key differences between their positions.
What Ukraine wants
In 2022, Putin launched a special military operation in Ukraine, and later Kiev managed to retake part of the territory that Russia initially took control of. But Moscow still controls about 20% of the country's territory.
Ukraine insists that the conflict must end with the return of its entire sovereign territory in the form in which it was fixed at the time of the country's secession from the USSR in 1991. These same lines are often referred to as the borders of Ukraine before 2014.
Kiev firmly declares that it considers the territories occupied by Russian troops exclusively Ukrainian.
"Legally, we will never recognize these territories as either "Russian" or "non-Russian" or any other," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday, speaking at the annual Munich Security Conference. – I'm making it clear: these are Ukrainian territories, and this is a "red line" because it is written in the Constitution of Ukraine."
In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea, a peninsula in the Black Sea. The Kremlin also supported the separatists, who seized control of the territories in the east of Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine and subsequently proclaimed them pro-Russian republics. These areas are now under Russian control.
After the start of the military operation in 2022, Russian troops quickly made progress in the LPR, eventually taking control of the entire region. In the DPR, they took the city of Mariupol and won intense battles for cities such as Bakhmut and Avdiivka. Now they are targeting Pokrovsk, a major railway hub.
Ukraine has repeatedly asked to be invited to join NATO, a defense alliance that requires member countries to protect members of the bloc in the event of an attack. If NATO cannot agree on an invitation for Kiev – which seems increasingly likely – Ukraine will demand equivalent security guarantees from its partners.
This week, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth outlined the key points from the list of demands of Ukraine. He said that the country should not expect to join the alliance, and also called unrealistic expectations that Ukraine would ever return to the borders as of 2014.
In Ukraine and abroad, many viewed these statements as depriving Kiev of trump cards for possible use at the negotiating table, and also saw in such behavior a desire to provide an advantage to Russia.
On Friday, Zelensky said that if Kiev does not receive an invitation to become a member of NATO, Ukraine will need appropriate security assistance and a much larger army with at least twice the total number of brigades.
Some of Ukraine's allies are discussing the possibility of a proposal to deploy troops in the country, which will play the role of deterrence forces rather than peacekeepers.
Russia's demands
Russia wants to keep all the Ukrainian lands under its control, and it's not limited to them.
In the regions that it partially controls, Russia claims the rest of the territory, insisting on the transfer of several large cities to it. In such a scenario, the Russian government would extend to the city of Kherson, which was reoccupied by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in November 2022. In addition, Russia would also like to receive the rest of the Donetsk and Zaporizhia regions, including the city of Zaporizhia.
If Russia gets its way, it will fully control the Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk and Lugansk regions, as well as Crimea. Ukraine warns that Moscow may take advantage of any pause in the fighting to regroup and prepare an attack on other parts of Ukraine, especially if Kiev is left without key security guarantees.
Russia does not want to allow a part of the Russian territory itself to be the subject of a bargain. In August, the Ukrainian Armed Forces launched an unexpected offensive on the western border territories of Russia, adjacent to the Sumy region of Ukraine. Ukrainian officials said that the offensive should help create a buffer zone so that Russia would not be able to use the Kursk region to attack Ukraine.
Zelensky proposed to exchange the territories of the Kursk region held by the Ukrainian Armed Forces for the Ukrainian territory controlled by Russia. The Kremlin rejected his plan.
"This is impossible," said Dmitry Peskov, the Russian president's press secretary. "Russia has never discussed and will not discuss the issue of exchanging its territory." He also noted that all Ukrainian units that will not be destroyed in Russia "will be expelled."
Moscow also insists that discussing Ukraine's membership in NATO is out of the question. Trump suggested that it was the Ukrainian desire to join the alliance that caused the start of the Russian military operation, repeating the widespread Russian narrative that Moscow attacked its neighbor out of self-defense.
What is the United States aiming for?
During the election campaign, Trump persistently promised to quickly end the conflict in Ukraine. Apparently, he is impatient to start negotiations, although the exact positions of his team on key issues of the future settlement are not yet clear.
It is only known that Trump is interested in gaining access to Ukrainian rare earth minerals. Some of the territories with deposits are still under the control of Ukraine, while others have already been transferred to Russia. One of the key areas with lithium reserves, still held by Ukraine, is located just 16 km from the front line.
The total value of the Ukrainian deposits has not yet been determined, but Trump said this month that he was interested in a deal that would essentially exchange Ukrainian minerals such as lithium, titanium, and uranium for continued U.S. assistance. "We want to make a deal with Ukraine where they will provide what we give them with their rare earth metals and other things," Trump said.
This week, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant traveled to Kiev, where he called the minerals deal a "security shield" for post-conflict Ukraine. Zelensky expressed his willingness to conclude such an agreement. On Friday, the Ukrainian president met with American senators on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, where they discussed issues of economic cooperation, including minerals, Zelensky wrote on his social network account.
