Peace Negotiations

Trump signed the Russia sanctions bill into law on September 18, after the House passed it 262–159 and the Senate 86–11. It authorises tariffs of up to 100 per cent on countries buying Russian oil and gas, and sanctions Russian officials, companies and banks. Named for the late Senator Lindsey Graham, it is the first pressure instrument here to move from awaited to enacted. The week before, Trump wrote that Ukraine and Russia had each agreed to spare the other’s energy targets. A day later neither government had said so. Zelenskyy’s own position was conditional — Ukraine would de-escalate only if Washington first secured Russia’s ‘genuine readiness to end the war… on a long-term basis’ — and the Kremlin offered only that calls on Kyiv to stop ‘can only be welcomed’. Hours before, Ukraine had struck the TANECO refinery in Tatarstan. A trilateral round is being prepared for October and has not convened. Its scope is narrowing to energy and grain; Russia has rejected a ceasefire alongside the talks, and Putin will receive Zelenskyy only in Moscow. On September 18 Putin said Kyiv was doing ‘everything to ensure that there is no peace and no negotiations’.

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Today6

NewSep 18, 2026high

The Sanctions Bill Washington Spent a Year Not Passing Becomes Law

Trump signed the Russia sanctions bill on September 18. The House had passed it 262–159 two days earlier, with 58 Democrats voting for and seven Republicans against; the Senate cleared it 86–11 in August. The law authorises tariffs of up to 100 per cent on countries buying Russian oil and gas — China and India foremost — and sanctions Russian officials, companies and financial institutions. It is named for the late Senator Lindsey Graham, who negotiated Trump’s support for it. Don Beyer, voting against, called the tariff authority a loophole letting the president name ‘basically any country as a facilitator of evading Russian sanctions… with no guardrails or oversight, and no expiration.’ It is the first pressure instrument in this record to move from awaited to enacted.

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reuters.comnpr.org

NewSep 14, 2026high

Trump Says Both Sides Agreed to Spare Energy. Neither Capital Says So.

A day after telling reporters that Ukraine must stop hitting Russian diesel, Trump wrote that ‘Ukraine has agreed not to hit Russian Energy targets. Russia has agreed to do, likewise!’ As of the following day neither government had said any such thing. Zelenskyy’s own statement was conditional: Ukraine would take de-escalatory steps only ‘if our American partners can secure Russia’s genuine readiness to end the war… honestly and on a long-term basis.’ The Kremlin went no further than Dmitry Peskov’s line that ‘any call on the Kyiv regime to stop strikes on civilian economic infrastructure can only be welcomed’ — a welcome, not an undertaking. Hours before Trump’s Sunday remark Ukraine had struck the TANECO refinery in Tatarstan. Three outlets reported the non-confirmation independently.

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theguardian.compbs.orgdw.comaljazeera.com

Sep 6, 2026high

Trump's Envoys Reach Kyiv at Last, by Train

Witkoff and Kushner arrived at Kyiv's railway station on 6 September — neither had set foot in Ukraine before, and Russian strikes near Boryspil had closed the air route. Zelensky met them at Sofiiska Square, and the day ran to three rounds: a bilateral session on Ukraine's winter needs, security guarantees, economic guarantees and Patriot supplies; a second with his delegation; then a third joined by the national security advisers of Britain, France and Germany — the first time the European format assembled in August has sat inside the American channel rather than beside it. Zelensky said afterwards that Ukraine, Europe and the United States had agreed to meet again, though nobody named a date or a venue: “in Europe, in the United States, or perhaps again in Ukraine.”

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ukrinform.netukrinform.netukrinform.netukrinform.netkyivindependent.com

Sep 5, 2026high

Putin Sits Down With Trump's Envoys for Three Hours and Ten Minutes

Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner spent three hours and ten minutes with Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin on 5 September, their first trip to Russia since January. Putin's foreign-policy aide Yuri Ushakov said the Americans had come better prepared than before, having “formulated a number of considerations about possible ways of settlement,” and called the talks constructive and frank. Nothing in the Russian position moved: Putin told them Russian forces were advancing and would meet their goals, and that the war's “root causes” had to be resolved; Peskov had restated the day before that Ukraine must withdraw from Donetsk and Luhansk before any ceasefire. Gene Lange, the Treasury's acting sanctions czar, travelled with the envoys and met Putin's envoy Kirill Dmitriev in preparation — the clearest sign that sanctions were on the table.

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nytimes.comaxios.comkyivindependent.com

Sep 5, 2026high

For Three Days, Neither Capital Is Bombed

For the length of the envoys' shuttle, each side stopped hitting the other's capital. Peskov said on 5 September that Putin had ordered Russian forces not to strike Kyiv for three days from “midnight today” — he did not say which day — and hours later, after a call with the Americans, Zelensky said Ukraine would refrain from striking Moscow through the end of Monday, a halt on “the cities involved in the negotiation process.” It is the first reciprocal restraint since the talks lapsed in February, and it is narrow. Russian strikes elsewhere in Ukraine went on unabated, Kyiv's sirens sounded repeatedly on the 5th anyway, and a large attack had hit the capital's two main airports hours before it began. Moscow reported no drones downed and its airports running normally.

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ukrinform.netukrinform.netnytimes.comkyivindependent.comaxios.com

Aug 27, 2026high

Moscow Is Said to Have Written Off the Talks and Chosen Escalation

Russia has concluded that negotiations have reached a dead end and is preparing to escalate, weighing heavier conventional ballistic-missile attacks on Kyiv — including the centre of the capital — and on infrastructure in other cities, according to three people close to the Kremlin speaking to Bloomberg. The negotiating frameworks, on this account, have effectively collapsed and the two sides are back at square one. The sourcing is anonymous and uncorroborated, and it is recorded as a report rather than as a fact about strikes that have not happened. It lands the same day as the opposite claim from Kyiv: the head of Ukraine's Presidential Office said a new round could be revived as early as September. Both cannot be right about the same table.

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japantimes.co.jp

Earlier this month20

NewSep 18, 2026

Representatives of the Kyiv regime, the leadership in Kyiv, talk about peace and propose to resume so-called negotiations, but they themselves commit such crimes and do everything to ensure that there is no peace and no negotiations.^?

— Vladimir Putin

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interfax.rupravda.com.ua

Checked

Said at a session of Russia’s Military-Industrial Commission on September 18, 2026, and reported by Interfax. The English wording is Ukrainska Pravda’s translation of that report. It is an assertion about Kyiv’s intent, made in the week both governments said an October round was being prepared.

NewSep 14, 2026

So far, no one has seen any genuine willingness on Russia’s part to bring the war to an end. But if our American partners can secure Russia’s genuine readiness to end the war aimed at destroying lives, and to do so honestly and on a long-term basis, Ukraine will take its own de-escalatory steps.^?

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy

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theguardian.compbs.org

Checked

A conditional offer, not a pause. Two days earlier Zelenskyy had narrowed the achievable first step to ‘energy and grain’. PBS carries a differently worded version of the same statement; both are on the record and neither is a commitment with a date.

NewSep 14, 2026

Both Sides Say October, Neither Says Yes

Kyrylo Budanov said Ukraine was readying a new trilateral round — ‘We’re preparing. For October’ — and Peskov said Russia did not rule out the possibility ‘in the foreseeable future’. Nothing has convened: the last trilateral sessions were in Abu Dhabi and Geneva in January and February. Scope has narrowed rather than widened. Russia rejected a ceasefire running alongside the talks; Ukraine’s asks are energy de-escalation and the unblocking of Black Sea grain, which Zelenskyy called ‘step number one’. On the format, Putin turned down meeting Zelenskyy at the G20, with Peskov saying he would receive him only in Moscow.

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dw.compravda.com.ua

NewSep 13, 2026

Mr. Zelenskyy has to do one thing: He has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia. There are plenty of other targets. Don’t hit diesel fuel. That’s hurting the world.^?

— Donald Trump

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aljazeera.comdw.com

Checked

Said to reporters at the Amgen Irish Open in Doonbeg on September 13, 2026. Whether the strikes are what is ‘hurting the world’ is disputed: analysts quoted by Al Jazeera put the larger share of the diesel price rise on the Iran war. US diesel was about $6.20 a gallon.

NewSep 12, 2026

President Putin [has] laid out his line of what he wants to achieve. If Ukraine wanted to withdraw to that line, then obviously we have the rest of the deal set up and put together. Ukraine right now does not want to do that.^?

— Jared Kushner

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dw.com

Checked

Said online to the YES security conference in Kyiv on September 12, 2026. A mediator’s account of his own mediation: that the remainder of a deal is assembled is uncorroborated, and the line Putin demands is reported to exceed what Russia holds.

Sep 6, 2026

We expect the war will continue — Ukraine is counting on US energy and air-defence support this winter, and does not expect an increase in Patriot supplies until next year.^?

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy

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kyivindependent.comkyivindependent.com

Checked

Unverified — the horizon has not passed. “Into the winter months” is read concretely as hostilities still under way on 31 December 2026, which bounds the claim at both ends. Said in Kyiv on 6 September, hours after the US envoys' first visit (Kyiv Independent).

Sep 6, 2026

I think we made a lot of progress in Moscow. We heard new ideas. You heard President Zelensky talk about a trilateral that we are hopeful will be announced in short order.^?

— Steve Witkoff

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ukrinform.netkyivindependent.com

Checked

Unverified, and unverifiable as stated: no text, date or venue was published, and the only account of the progress is the mediator's own. Zelensky, at the same briefing, said he expects the war to continue into the winter (Ukrinform, Kyiv Independent).

Sep 3, 2026

Putin, in a Rare Upbeat Turn, Says the Two Sides Must Settle It Themselves

At the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok on 3 September, Putin struck a rare optimistic note — there was a chance of an agreement, he said, and contacts with Ukraine continue, mostly through intelligence channels — while reframing the mediators' role. Russia and Ukraine must "primarily reach an agreement between themselves"; the United States, China and others could "support and help" but no more. It reads as a drift from the US-brokered "spirit of Anchorage" toward bilateral primacy. The optimism sat beside a jab: Putin again called Zelensky's warning about civilian flights over Russia "state terrorism." Both sides offered rare upbeat comments the same day.

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english.nv.uareuters.com

Sep 3, 2026

Zelensky Says Trump's Envoys Will Come to Kyiv at Last — Dates Set, Not Kept

Zelensky said on 3 September that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had confirmed preliminary dates to visit Kyiv in the coming days — their first trip to Ukraine as Trump's intermediaries — and to return to Moscow, to work on restarting trilateral talks. "We have confirmation from them: there will be a meeting in Moscow, as well as one in Kyiv." Until now the two had discussed Ukraine's positions only outside the country. The caveat is this desk's recurring one: a Ukrainian official told the Kyiv Independent the visit may still not happen. Announced, with dates — but nothing has convened.

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kyivpost.comkyivindependent.comt.me

Sep 2, 2026

Oh, he'd do it if I wanted it. But I want to do it when we're ready to make a peace deal. … I want to do it when that war is ending, and I think we will.^?

— Donald Trump

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ukrinform.net

Checked

Said in the Oval Office on 2 September. It mirrors Moscow: two days earlier the Kremlin said a summit is possible “only to formalize agreements.” Both capitals now place the meeting at signing — which, with no agreement drafted, defers it indefinitely.

Sep 1, 2026

Russia will agree to peace talks only under a reliable peace plan guaranteeing that Ukraine "will never be anti-Russia" and "will never be a battering ram for the West"; Russia's war goals are unchanged, and Western proposals for a pause on the front are merely an attempt to let Ukraine regroup and rearm.^?

— Valentina Matviyenko

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newsukraine.rbc.ua

Checked

A restatement of Russia's two-year-old "root causes" terms in fresh words, by the Federation Council speaker. What it adds is the reason Moscow gives for refusing every ceasefire: a pause only lets Ukraine "regroup and rearm" — an assertion about Western intent, not a checkable term. Recorded rather than verified.

NewSep 1, 2026

For us, it’s a closed issue, it’s not up for discussion, the people living there have made their informed choice — they’ve tied their future to Russia.^?

— Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations

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press.un.org

Checked

Said of Crimea, Sevastopol, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson by Russia’s representative to the General Assembly plenary of September 1, who is not named in the UN’s record. It is a statement of negotiating position, not a checkable fact, and it sits against Kushner’s account that a deal turns on where Ukraine withdraws to.

Aug 31, 2026

US and Russian Finance Chiefs Meet on Trump's Peace Plan

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov on the sidelines of the G20 finance ministers' meeting in Asheville, North Carolina, around 31 August, to discuss Trump's peace plan — a rare US–Russia contact on the economic track while the negotiating table stays empty. The venue reconciles two accounts that had looked contradictory, one placing it at the G20 and one “in the United States”. Bessent said the US would give Russia no economic relief until it ends the war. A Ukrainian official said Kyiv knew “nothing” of it: the channel runs around Kyiv, not through it.

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kyivindependent.comenglish.nv.uaaxios.com

Aug 30, 2026

There have long been proposals to hold a Putin-Trump-Zelensky summit. And you know our head of state's position well: such a meeting is possible only to formalize agreements. … Naturally, it is absolutely pointless for the presidents to meet to discuss all of this. They can meet only to finalize agreements. But actually working toward a settlement is exactly what the Kyiv side does not want.^±

— Dmitry Peskov

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meduza.iokyivpost.com

Checked

Accurate as a statement of Russia's unchanged position — Meduza traces the same formulation to August 2025, when Trump said a trilateral was two weeks away and none followed, and to 5 June 2026, when Putin said he saw no point in meeting Zelensky, the day after Zelensky's open letter proposing exactly that. The closing clause about Kyiv is an assertion about intent, not a term, and is unsupported.

Aug 29, 2026

The CIA Director Takes a Summit Proposal to Moscow Himself

John Ratcliffe put a Trump–Putin–Zelensky meeting to Russia's intelligence chiefs during his covert Moscow trip on 25 August, two sources briefed on the matter told Axios — the first time the CIA director has been personally involved in the diplomacy. He met SVR chief Sergey Naryshkin and FSB director Alexander Bortnikov, partly to establish whether they could move Putin back toward US-mediated talks, and concluded Bortnikov could help restart them. The New York Times reported he gave Bortnikov a bleak assessment of Russia's position and urged a deal before it worsened. Washington briefed Zelensky on 28 August. Nothing has convened: no participant is on the record and the CIA declined to comment.

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axios.com

Aug 28, 2026

Russia's military leadership has been tasked with preparing several operational scenarios for an offensive in northern Ukraine, with Kyiv and Chernihiv identified as key areas. Indeed, several options were considered. The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces has developed possible response scenarios, including measures to defend, protect, and counter these actions.^?

— Pavlo Palisa

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kyivindependent.comaxios.com

Checked

Palisa says the information was verified and came from several intelligence sources he did not identify as Ukrainian or foreign. His own caveat is the material one: no new offensive groupings are currently detected in the Kyiv or Chernihiv directions, so this describes contingency planning rather than an assembled force.

Aug 27, 2026

A new round of talks between the Ukrainian and Russian delegations could take place as early as September. The negotiations are paused but could soon be revived — “And with the Americans too. We can't do without them.”^?

— Kyrylo Budanov

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kyivpost.com

Checked

Not tagged as a prediction: “could take place as early as September” is a hedge, not a forecast. Rounds did convene in September — Putin with the US envoys on the 5th, Zelensky with them on the 6th — but no Ukrainian and Russian delegations have met each other.

Aug 23, 2026high

A Buffer Zone Under Someone Else's Administration Appears on the Table

Zelensky set out on August 23 the framework he has worked up with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, and one part of it is new. First a ceasefire. Second, an American proposal that Ukraine and Russia "take equal steps back" from the current line to create a buffer called a free economic zone, run by an unspecified third party — Zelensky said it is not yet clear which. Third, what the EU and NATO would provide and what Ukraine would give in return. He called the ideas joint with the Americans and Europeans and said everyone had responded positively. No session has convened: the last trilateral round was in Geneva on February 17–18, and a TASS source claimed the envoys' Kyiv and Moscow visits are postponed indefinitely, which ISW says it can neither support nor refute.

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ukrinform.netaa.com.trunderstandingwar.org

Aug 15, 2026high

Britain, France and Germany Build a Format to Keep Europe at the Table

On 15 August The New York Times reported, citing five European officials, that the three governments are constructing a joint E3 format to represent Europe in any negotiation over the war. The stated fear is that Washington and Moscow could settle without them — leaving Europe to enforce the sanctions, decide the fate of frozen Russian assets and help defend whatever Ukraine was left with. France and Germany are shaping the position; Britain, under a new prime minister, is described as hesitant about the cost to its relationship with Donald Trump. Poland, Italy and the Nordic countries would be consulted and the EU brought in later, though Baltic states and Hungary are reported not to trust Paris and Berlin to speak for them. Britain’s Foreign Office called the discussion speculative; an EU representative said the various efforts were complementary rather than competing. The three form the core of the Coalition of the Willing, which has rehearsed a post-ceasefire deployment but never agreed to make one.

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pravda.com.uanewsukraine.rbc.uaeuromaidanpress.com

Aug 14, 2026high

Moscow Rejects Both Offers and Restates the Terms It Has Not Moved From

A day later Russia’s Foreign Ministry closed both doors. Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Moscow saw "no signs of improvement in the situation and, consequently, no grounds for half-measures that merely grant the Kyiv regime temporary breathing space", said Russia had received no formalised Turkish appeal through official channels, and ruled out any return to the 2022-23 Black Sea Initiative, which she called a one-sided scheme the West had abused. She then restated what Russia says a settlement requires, in the same terms it has used for two years: elimination of the war’s "root causes" — NATO’s eastward expansion and Ukraine’s accession to it — plus guarantees for the Russian-speaking population in territory Kyiv still holds. Sergei Lavrov, in a separate interview the same day, accused both Turkey and the United States of never condemning Ukrainian strikes on Black Sea shipping. Together the two set out Moscow’s position plainly: it will receive envoys, and it will not trade.

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meduza.iothemoscowtimes.comturkiyetoday.compravda.com.ua

This quarter17

Aug 24, 2026

Forty-Eight Countries Demand a Ceasefire, and the Broker Is Not Among Them

At a Security Council press stakeout on Ukraine's 35th Independence Day, Denmark's foreign minister read a statement for 48 states and the European Union urging Russia to accept a full, immediate and unconditional ceasefire, and demanding prisoner exchanges, the release of the unlawfully detained and the return of deported Ukrainian children. The United States did not sign — as it declined comparable statements in May and in autumn 2025 — while brokering the framework the statement calls for. Russia's ambassador Vasily Nebenzya rejected it, saying attempts to “impose” a freeze under the guise of a ceasefire were “doomed to fail.”

Aug 23, 2026

We believe that this is the most active stage at which diplomacy can lead to the end of the war. It's the end of this year and the end of summer 2027.^?

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Aug 21, 2026

Russia remains ready for dialogue and to hear reasonable proposals, but only on the basis of the realities that have developed on the ground and in line with the goals set by its president — and the proposals now being conveyed to it are, in Putin's words, "exotic in nature and are unacceptable".^±

— Vladimir Putin

Aug 14, 2026

We are not refusing to talk to them, and if they come, they know that President Putin is ready to receive them again. The question is, what will they bring?^✓

— Sergei Lavrov

Aug 13, 2026

Kyiv Offers a Black Sea Truce, and Ankara Offers a Mechanism

On 13 August Ukraine passed Russia an offer of a mutual halt to attacks on civilian ships and port infrastructure in the Black Sea, routed through an intermediary country that no account names. It reached Moscow days after Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, said Ankara had put its own proposal to both capitals — a moratorium on military action against merchant shipping, with a mechanism for declaring it. Neither offer specifies waters, duration, sequencing or any means of verification, and neither text has been published. Both arrived as Ukraine’s grain exports ran 76% below last August and shipowners abandoned Odesa; roughly nine-tenths of Ukraine’s farm exports normally leave through its deepwater Black Sea ports.

Aug 12, 2026

Washington Asks Kyiv to Stop Hitting Tankers, and Kyiv Stops

The Financial Times reported on 12 August that Ukraine had halted its drone campaign against oil tankers using Novorossiysk after a request from Vice President JD Vance at the end of July, and that Kyiv had reaffirmed it would leave non-sanctioned foreign vessels alone. Washington’s concern was the oil market and the exposure of Chevron and ExxonMobil to the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, whose Kazakh crude leaves through that port. Two days later Sergei Lavrov, complaining that neither Ankara nor Washington condemns Ukrainian strikes at sea, said in passing that Turkey and Vance had privately told Kyiv to leave the consortium alone — an adversary confirming the request from the other side of the table. It is the one instrument of pressure this month that visibly changed a party’s behaviour, and it was applied to Kyiv.

Aug 11, 2026

There was a report from our negotiating team. We passed our proposals to the American side.^?

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Aug 5, 2026

Unlike Russia, Ukraine has long stated its readiness for a ceasefire and peace talks. We continue to work towards a lasting and just peace.^±

— Alexander Stubb

Aug 5, 2026

A Back Channel Surfaces in Vienna

Former senior officials from Britain, France, Germany and Russia met confidentially in Vienna in July to explore what terms a negotiation might rest on. The meeting became public on 5 August, in a Bloomberg report that named three of the Western participants — Tim Barrow, until recently Britain’s national security adviser; Markus Ederer, a former German state secretary and EU ambassador to Moscow; and the French diplomat Pierre Vimont — while leaving the former Kremlin official unnamed. The Geneva-based Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue convened it; Ederer and Vimont sit on its board. Every government kept its distance: the German Foreign Office said the talks were held neither on its behalf nor in coordination with it, and Dmitry Peskov declined to comment, though Britain is reported to have welcomed the initiative and France to have been informed. It was the second such channel to surface within a month, after Azerbaijan’s president disclosed a July meeting in Baku between former German and Russian officials.

Aug 1, 2026

You're going to see some efforts over the next few weeks to see if we can't restart talks between the two sides and bring this war to an end. We also understand that both sides have some pretty strong red lines, and until we can bring those red lines a little closer together, we're not going to be there yet.^✓

— Marco Rubio

Jul 25, 2026

A Russian Ally Asks Putin, in Public, to Freeze the War

Standing beside Vladimir Putin at the Russia-Kazakhstan Interregional Cooperation Forum in Omsk on July 25, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said out loud what none of Moscow's partners had said to his face: "If I may offer my humble opinion, since I have been asked, perhaps it is time to freeze this conflict and return to the Istanbul formula 2.0." He wrapped it in praise for Putin's "utmost diplomatic flexibility" and argued that guarantees from the great powers, "including Russia," could carry the two sides toward a settlement. "This must be brought to an end." Putin said nothing about it in the public part of the meeting. The refusal came afterwards and second-hand: Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, giving an account of the private conversation, said Putin had told Tokayev that freezing the conflict "as such is impossible, given Kyiv's position" because Russia must first achieve its battlefield objectives, and repeated the standing formula that the fighting could stop "by the end of the day today" if Ukraine "makes the appropriate decisions" — which the Kremlin has defined since June 2024 as Ukrainian withdrawal from all of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson oblasts and abandonment of NATO accession. The exchange is worth the record for what it is rather than what it changed: a partner state, at a bilateral forum on Russian soil, publicly proposing the one thing the Kremlin has spent the year ruling out, and being publicly refused within a day. ISW assesses Putin used the meeting to justify continuing the war as he has been. Note the attribution chain on the refusal: Putin is not on the record on the freeze at all, and every account of what he said to Tokayev runs through his spokesman.

Jul 23, 2026

Russia's Anchorage proposals failed, and peace will come only through new concepts and ideas the United States is willing to support — there is no agreement with Russia to end the war.^±

— Marco Rubio

Jul 23, 2026

Trilateral negotiations between Ukraine, the United States and Russia will be held in the autumn of 2026 — though if the timing were up to me they would happen in July.^?

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Jul 22, 2026

The situation on the front, together with our long-range sanctions and mid-range strikes, is creating a new atmosphere around Putin. A very toxic atmosphere. He alone is the reason this war began and hasn't ended. Putin alone is responsible for the losses Russians continue to suffer. His retinue understands this – they are signalling it to us and to our partners. Russian society is beginning to feel it more and more as well.^?

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Jul 22, 2026

Kremlin Hardens Demands, Rules Out Returning Occupied Border Regions

The Kremlin has hardened its negotiating position, Bloomberg reported on July 22, citing three people close to it: Moscow no longer intends to return occupied parts of Ukraine's Sumy and Kharkiv border regions in any settlement — planning to hold them as permanent buffer zones — while Putin remains determined to seize all of Donetsk by force and would return to serious talks only after doing so. An earlier informal proposal, in which Russia would hand back slices of Sumy and Kharkiv in exchange for Ukraine ceding the rest of Donetsk and Luhansk, is now off the table; the sources attributed the shift to the collapse of the 'spirit of Anchorage' understanding reached with President Trump, compounded by intensifying Ukrainian long-range strikes and US pressure. The hardening came the same day Zelenskyy spoke by phone with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner about reinvigorating diplomacy — the two sides publicly further apart than ever on any route back to negotiations. The report rests on anonymous Kremlin sources and describes a stated position, not a confirmed outcome — but the Kremlin put the same position on the record the same day: spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on July 22 that Putin's June 2024 demands, complete Ukrainian withdrawal from the parts of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson oblasts Ukraine still holds and abandonment of NATO accession, remain the basis of Russia's conditions for ending the war.

Jul 16, 2026

There is no immediate prospect for resuming peace talks with Ukraine, though Russia remains open to it.^±

— Dmitry Peskov

Jul 15, 2026

I believe Vladimir Putin is ready to reach a peace agreement soon and I hope the war will conclude during my administration.^✗

— Donald Trump

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