A Vicious Circle. Why are peace talks in Ukraine stalling?
A pause has emerged in the peace talks to end the war in Ukraine, which Moscow, Kyiv, and Washington have been conducting since the beginning of this year. Publicly, the parties explain this by stating that the White House's attention is focused on the war with Iran. But, as BBC found out , it's not just about that.
Photo by Iryna Rybakova, Ukraine's 93rd Mechanized Brigade via AP
The negotiations were stalling even before the escalation in the Middle East. There was no progress on the most sensitive issues, including the territories of Donbas, on which the end of the war depends. The parties are also not discussing global security issues, without which achieving a lasting peace will be difficult.
The last round of talks on settling the war in Ukraine took place in Geneva in mid-February. Their participants spoke cautiously about progress but still promised to continue consultations in the near future.
As a result, the date and location for future talks (Geneva, Abu Dhabi, Turkey, and even cities in the USA were considered) have not yet been agreed upon. Ukrainian negotiators will hold meetings in the USA over the weekend, but the participation of the Russian delegation is not planned.
Both Moscow and Kyiv explain the prolonged pause by the major war between the USA and Israel against Iran.
"I have very bad premonitions about the influence of this war on the situation in Ukraine," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated in an interview with the BBC. "America's focus is on the Middle East more than on Ukraine, unfortunately. That's why you see that our [...] tripartite meetings are constantly being postponed. And the reason is one — the war in Iran."
The Kremlin also acknowledges that tripartite talks have been "put on hold." "Now the priorities for American negotiators are different," commented Russian President's press secretary Dmitry Peskov. "They have a lot of burden in other, well-understood directions." European interlocutors of the Financial Times also said that US President Donald Trump's attention had fully shifted from Europe to the Middle East. One of them called it a "catastrophe" for Europe and Ukraine.
However, as a high-ranking European diplomat and two sources familiar with the results of previous meetings from their participants told the BBC, in reality, the tripartite peace process began to "run out of steam" even before the start of the war with Iran.
BBC sources (all of whom requested anonymity as they are not authorized to discuss the negotiations with the media) agree: the agenda and the format of the talks in their current form are unlikely to lead to an end to the war in Ukraine.
In recent months, direct negotiations between Russia, Ukraine, and the USA have been conducted in two directions: military and political. Participants of the "military" subgroup discuss how to technically implement a ceasefire decision if it is adopted. The parties managed to make progress in discussing this issue.
However, the key problems of the "political settlement" (without which any successes in the "military direction" are of little significance) still remain unresolved. These include the fate of the territories of Donbas controlled by Ukraine, which Russia demands be transferred, and the status of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
The parties have not come close to any compromise on these issues, BBC interlocutors familiar with the course of negotiations say. Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated in February that the people of Ukraine would not accept a unilateral withdrawal from the territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Russian President Vladimir Putin had previously stated directly that without such a withdrawal, military actions would not cease. At the same time, he assured: Russia is ready to achieve this by military means.
The American side proposed turning the territories disputed by Russia into a "free economic zone." The Kremlin mentioned late last year the possible creation of a "demilitarized zone," where order would be ensured by Russian police and Rosgvardia (this agency actively participated in the invasion from its very beginning) under the management of "Russian administration." Kyiv said it was ready to discuss the option of an economic zone, but without any concessions on sovereignty issues.
According to the New York Times, at the February meeting in Abu Dhabi, Ukraine proposed deploying a contingent of peacekeepers in these territories. But such an option does not suit Moscow, which is sharply against the presence of any NATO military forces in Ukraine. As a result, according to one of the BBC's interlocutors, the Russian side's interest in the idea of a special economic zone decreased.
As NYT wrote, in general, Russia refuses to discuss any deal option for the territories that differs from the "Anchorage understandings" — this is how Moscow describes the agreements that, as the Kremlin believes, Putin and Trump reached in August 2025 during a personal meeting in Alaska. Russian officials believe that the USA then agreed that Russia should gain control over the disputed territories of Donbas.
In reality, Putin and Trump did not reach any agreements then, and the White House was disappointed with the results of the meeting, as reported by the BBC and other media. One of the BBC's interlocutors jokingly describes its results as "Anchorage misunderstandings."
Publicly, American officials have made no statements suggesting that Washington had concluded any "deal" with Moscow. At the same time, in early March, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov again spoke of a "concrete understanding" reached in Alaska but admitted: "The spirit of Anchorage is evaporating."
Discussions about the fate of the Zaporizhzhia NPP are also not particularly successful, say two BBC sources. Kyiv proposed an option to jointly use the station with American participation, while the Russian side is only willing to share part of the energy produced with Ukraine (this was reported, in particular, by the Associated Press agency).
Photo Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP
Ukraine has repeatedly made it clear that it is ready to discuss any territorial and other concessions only after agreeing on a package of legal international security guarantees that will prevent the possibility of a new war. Ukrainian officials have been conducting consultations on this issue for many months.
For example, at the December meeting of Ukraine, the USA, and European leaders in Berlin, guarantees "modeled on NATO's Article Five" on collective defense were discussed. In January, Zelenskyy claimed that the package of guarantees was agreed upon "100%." But since then, its final agreement has not been announced.
One of the interlocutors calls the situation with security guarantees a vicious circle: without guarantees, Ukraine cannot discuss the territorial issue, and without resolving the territorial issue, progress in negotiations is difficult to imagine.
According to Zelenskyy, recently the American side insists that security guarantees must be approved simultaneously with the final peace agreement, and not before it, as Kyiv desires. The Ukrainian side demands that the package of agreements be ratified by the US Congress even before that.
Answering BBC's questions about the stalling of negotiations, Russian President's press secretary Dmitry Peskov stated that "nothing has started to run out of steam." "From the very beginning, it was clear that the tripartite negotiations would not be easy," Peskov said. "And indeed, many issues, especially the territorial issue, still need to be discussed further. It is very complex. Many other complex issues. And we prefer not to announce them publicly, of course. We hope the negotiations will continue soon."
Representatives of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (whose head, Rustem Umerov, leads the Ukrainian delegation) did not answer questions.
"Putin needs more than just Donbas"
There are other problems on the path to a lasting peace in Ukraine — and many of them have not even begun to be discussed by the parties, sources say. According to them, the topic of NATO non-expansion and other security issues still remain on the Kremlin's list of priorities — they are no less important to Vladimir Putin than establishing control over the territories of Donbas. Russian diplomats have recently increasingly recalled the proposals that Russia put forward to the West at the end of 2021, shortly before the invasion of Ukraine.
At that time, Russia demanded in an ultimatum from the USA that they exclude NATO expansion eastward and ensure the withdrawal of all armed forces and infrastructure from the territory of countries that joined the alliance after 1997. American officials then responded that they were ready to discuss some issues — for example, arms control, but rejected Moscow's toughest demands.
Already after the start of the full-scale war, NATO leadership repeatedly made it clear that it had no intention of abandoning its "open door" policy under any circumstances. But in mid-February, Deputy Head of the Russian Foreign Ministry Alexander Grushko stated: the proposals rejected in 2021 "remain relevant" and could "correct the security situation."
Currently, these topics are not being discussed in the negotiations, say two sources familiar with the discussions — this reduces Moscow's interest in the diplomatic process.
This is partly due to the US position, interlocutors suggest: the Trump administration is confident that peace in Ukraine will come after territorial issues are resolved. "The US administration does not always clearly understand Russia's priorities," agrees a high-ranking Western European diplomat. "But Putin needs more than just Donbas. He needs sovereignty over Ukraine."
At the heart of the current negotiations is a plan prepared last autumn by Donald Trump's special envoy, Steve Whitkoff. One of the drafts of this document — originally containing 28 points — was published by Verkhovna Rada deputy Oleksiy Honcharenko. It showed that the Americans were ready, among other things, to recognize "de facto Russian Crimea, Luhansk, and Donetsk," exclude Ukraine's entry into NATO, seek the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the territories of Donbas, and also discuss global security issues in Europe, reintegration of Russia into world politics and economy.
Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in Anchorage, Alaska, on August 15, 2025. Photo: AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson
Although some provisions of the plan (for example, regarding the size of the Ukrainian army at 600,000 people) diverged from the official Russian position, the document in its original form was called a "plan for Ukraine's capitulation" in Kyiv. It also alarmed Ukraine's European allies.
In late autumn and early winter, delegations from Kyiv and European capitals held several meetings with Whitkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, who joined the process. The American plan was shortened to 19-20 points. How this document looks after editing is unknown. "I am sure that the proposals made or being attempted by Europeans with Ukrainians definitely do not improve the document and do not improve the possibility of achieving long-term peace," commented Putin's aide Yuri Ushakov. Kyiv said that "anti-Ukrainian" points had been removed from the draft.
As two BBC interlocutors familiar with the course of negotiations told, issues related to global security matters were removed from the agenda.
Russian officials usually appeal to them, using the phrase "root causes of the conflict." One BBC source describes them as "security guarantees" for Russia — exactly how the Kremlin referred to its proposals in 2021.
Over recent years, Vladimir Putin has several times voiced a list of conditions under which Russia is ready to end the war. But while his demands to the Ukrainian authorities can be described as concrete (including reduction of the army, transfer of Donbas territories, recognition of Russian sovereignty over occupied lands, establishment of Russian language status), proposals to eliminate the "root causes of the conflict" have always sounded vague.
Discussing issues of European security architecture would be impossible without involving a broad coalition of European countries, BBC interlocutors admit. But Moscow does not want to see Europeans at the negotiating table: Russian officials openly accuse them of "prolonging the war."
Over the past six months, European diplomats have tried to establish direct contact with Moscow at least twice. In early autumn, UK Prime Minister's National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell called Vladimir Putin's aide Yuri Ushakov. This dialogue did not develop, because Powell allegedly did not want to "listen to Moscow's position," the Kremlin claimed.
In February this year, French President Emmanuel Macron's advisors, Emmanuel Bonne and Bertrand Buchwalter, met with Ushakov — in person. At the meeting, they tried to convince the Kremlin that European leaders should be at the negotiating table. To no avail — as a high-ranking European diplomat told the FT, the essence of the conversation boiled down to Ushakov "sending his interlocutors away." A BBC interlocutor who spoke with French officials describes their state after the meeting with Ushakov as "dead."
"When the French representative arrived, he did not bring any positive signals with him. Therefore, he really had nothing good to hear," Dmitry Peskov told the FT.
Dmitry Peskov acknowledged that in the future, "some European presence" at the talks "will be needed": "When it comes to the architecture of European security," the Russian President's press secretary explained. "But at the moment, we do not see the expediency of European participation. They want to continue fighting with Ukrainian hands."
BBC interlocutors familiar with the negotiations say that Russian negotiators currently do not have a formulated position on what exactly "Russia's security guarantees" should look like. "The Kremlin has problems with conveying its position and with communication," one of them admits.
At the same time, a high-ranking European diplomat assures that Russia is deliberately emphasizing the territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the negotiations. According to him, Moscow is participating in the negotiations not to achieve peace — the Kremlin is confident that it can achieve what it wants by military means — but to force the White House to pressure Kyiv.
"Because Russia's goal is for President Trump to blame Zelenskyy for being uncooperative. Russians know that Ukrainians cannot agree to the transfer of Donbas," he explains. "If the Russians start making demands for security guarantees and demanding concessions from the US, it will make Russia itself the uncooperative party."
In recent days, Trump has accused Kyiv of unwillingness to negotiate. The White House's position has not yet changed, even with reports that Russia is assisting the US enemy — Iran — with intelligence.
"Tell Zelenskyy to make a deal, because Putin is ready to make a deal," Trump said in an interview with NBC News. "Zelenskyy is much harder to deal with," said the American president, who has changed his mind several times about which side to blame for the stalled process since returning to the White House.
According to a high-ranking European diplomat, the lack of progress in the negotiations is unlikely to worry Vladimir Putin, who is confident that he "will win the war anyway." "He has no reason to make any compromises," he explains the Russian president's logic. "His position is to drag out this process and worsen Ukraine's situation."