Caught in a war that might have ended in 2022 – Why?

 
The talks that might have ended hostilities in early 2022
The first round of Russia -Ukraine talks after the Russia invasion on Thursday, February 24, 2022, actually took place just a few days later on Monday February 28 in Belarus, not far from the border with Ukraine.
The talks apparently focused on the possibility for a ceasefire. “The Ukrainian side, ... looking for an immediate ceasefire and the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops … the Russian side, looking for guarantees about Ukraine’s neutrality and that it would never join NATO.” (Al Jazeera, 28 February, 2022)
These talks were followed by talks in March, first in Belarus, and later in Turkey, while continuing to search for possible conditions for halting hostilities. The negotiations then ended with a “draft treaty” dated the April 15, 2022.
The draft treaty represents the only serious attempt to negotiate a framework for peace during the first year of the invasion. Understanding the positions of both Russia and Ukraine in these talks provides insight into their strategic priorities and reveals why a compromise proved elusive. Understanding the conflicting positions may be important to understand what is happening in today’s search for a ceasefire and a possible peace agreement after more than three years of war.
The April 15 draft treaty is entitled: “Treaty on Permanent Neutrality and Security Guarantees for Ukraine (Istanbul Treaty Final Draft) (2022).” Apart from the preamble it includes 17 articles and 6 annexes specifying the conditions for a deal between Russia and Ukraine,
 Here an overview of the most important conditions specified in the draft treaty (https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/a456d6dd8e27e830/e279a252-full.pdf).
 
Draft treaty demands with some of most important demands on Ukraine:
 
Permanent neutrality
1. Ukraine undertakes to support its permanent neutrality, which is declared and
enshrined in the Constitution of Ukraine.
2. The guarantor states recognize, respect and guarantee the status of Ukraine
as a permanently neutral state, and undertake to ensure that this status is observed at
the international level.
3. Pursuant to paragraph 1 of this Article, Ukraine, as a permanently neutral
state, undertakes:
a) not to engage in activities that would be contrary to the international legal
status of permanent neutrality;
b) to terminate international treaties and agreements incompatible with
permanent neutrality
 
No NATO membership
d) not to join any military alliances; not to conclude military agreements, the
implementation of which would contradict Articles 1 and 2 of this Treaty and/or harm the security of other Parties;
 
Strict limitations on foreign military cooperation:
e) not to allow entry into the territory of Ukraine or deployment in any form on its
territory, including temporarily, of foreign weapons , including missile weapons of any
type, armed forces and formations; not to allow foreign military personnel to remain on
the territory of Ukraine if this contradicts Articles 1 and 2 of this Treaty and/or harms the
security of other Parties.
 
Compliance with Treaty on the Non- Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT):
l) To strictly comply with its obligations under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation
of Nuclear Weapons ( NPT), prevent the training of its military personnel in the use of
nuclear weapons, the deployment on its territory of nuclear weapons of foreign states
and their means of delivery, as well as the creation of infrastructure for the deployment
or maintenance of nuclear weapons foreign states and means of its delivery;
 
These demands were followed by several other demands. All consistent with Russia’s broader objective: to halt further NATO enlargement and re-establish a sphere of influence over its neighbour.
 
Strict limits on armed forces of Ukraine
 Annex 1 specifies in details the limits on the armed forces of Ukraine, but it also reveals disagreement between the parties .
Apparently Russia wanted to limit the armed forces to 85,000 people, but the treaty also shows an alternative limit of 250,000. The same disagreement is found in limits specified for equipment, say tanks (342 vs 800), Armoured vehicles (2400 vs 1029, Guns (1900 vs 519) , MLRS with max range of 280 km, ( 600 vs 96), Anti-aircraft missiles with max range up to 75km (190 vs200), Combat aircraft (160 vs 102), combat helicopters (144 vs 35), Warships with displacement up to 3,200 tons (8 vs2 ).
 
Allowing membership of the EU
Article 3 of the draft treaty: The Parties to this Treaty share the understanding that Ukraine’s status as a permanently neutral state is, subject to the provisions of this Treaty, compatible with Ukraine’s possible membership in the European Union, as well as its participation in UN, OSCE or EU peacekeeping missions.
 
Security for Ukraine
Great Britain, China, the Russian Federation, the United States, the French Republic, (Republic of Belarus, Republic of Turkey), are the guarantors of the security of Ukraine as a permanently neutral state.
 
Article 2 of the draft treaty list some of conditions:
1. Pursuant to Article 1, the Guarantor States and other States that are Parties to this Treaty undertake:
a) to respect and observe the independence and sovereignty of Ukraine;
b) to terminate international treaties and agreements that are incompatible with the permanent neutrality of Ukraine;
c) not to enter into military alliances with Ukraine; not to enter into military agreements with it, the implementation of which would contradict Articles 1 and 2 of this Treaty and/or harm the security of other Parties;
d) not to carry out activities contrary to Ukraine’s international legal status of permanent neutrality;
e) to refrain from direct or indirect interference in any form in the internal affairs of Ukraine;
f) to refrain from the threat or use of force against Ukraine, its sovereignty and independence, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations;
 
Article 5 Guarantor states actionsin event of an armed attack on Ukraine
The Guarantor States and Ukraine agree that in the event of an armed attack on Ukraine, each of the Guarantor States, after holding urgent and immediate consultations (which shall be held within no more than three days) among them, in the exercise of the right to individual or collective self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, on the basis of a decision agreed upon by all Guarantor States, will provide (in response to and on the basis of an official request from Ukraine) assistance to Ukraine, as a permanently neutral state under attack, by immediately taking such individual or joint action as may be necessary.
 
Territorial demands
The difficult issues relating to Crimea and the Donbas are mostly missing in the draft treaty.
Only indirectly do we get some clues as what is going on. Article 8 and Article 9 of the draft treaty specifies that the important articles we have just gone through, “shall not apply to the territories indicated on the map in Annex 6.”
This map is apparently not to found in any the published material connected to meetings between Russia and Ukraine in 2022. Thus, the exact content of the map remains undisclosed in public sources, as neither Russia nor Ukraine has released it. Both parties may have been reluctant to share the full details due to the sensitive nature of the territorial issues involved, particularly regarding Crimea and the Donbas region.
 According to Ivan Grek, Director of the Russia Program at the George Washington University, sources have since revealed that Russia and Ukraine had agreed that there would be no negotiations about Crimea for the next 10-15 years, while the so-called people’s republics of Luhansk and Donetsk might get a special political status.
 
Demands related to language and de-nazification
Annex 2 On the importance of the status of the Russian language in Ukraine.
Annex 3A series demands relating to what is called “Purification of Power, ” meaning a kind of de-nazification of Ukraine
 
 Why did the peace talks fail in 2022?
Sometime after the April 15, 2022, Ukraine unilaterally withdrew from the talks and never went back. What made them withdraw from talks that might have ended the War in the spring of 2022?
What had happened that made them chose to continue fighting a war with enormous human and material costs for the past three and half years?
Several possible explanations may be offered.
 
Russian Blitzkrieg advances creating panic
 During the first days of the Russian invasion from North, East and South it looked as if Russia was carrying out a blitzkrieg that would overwhelm the Ukrainian forces. Russian troops began the invasion from multiple directions into the Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk, Sumy, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, and Kyiv regions.
A map of Russian advances on late February 26, 2022, showed the Russian advances:

On the same day CNN reported that the U.S. had offered to evacuate President Zelensky from Kyiv, perhaps to form a government in exile. Zelensky rejected the offer, saying ““The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”
Even so there must have been a whiff of defeatism during the first few days, not only in Ukraine but in the West. Perhaps remembering the strange attitude of President Biden in January 2022, when he had said: "I think what you're going to see is that Russia will be held accountable if it invades. And it depends on what it does. It's one thing if it's a minor incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do." (npr.org. January 20, 2022).
But it was no small incursion. In the late February and in March Russia besieged Mariupol, launched massive missile attacks on Kharkiv, entered Kherson and seized the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
 This also marks the period of the negotiations, when Ukraine might perhaps have been inclined to accept severe Russian demands for some kind of peace.
As late as March 29, 2022, after talks in Istanbul on March 28, Vladimir Medinsky, a senior advisor to the Russian president and lead negotiator could report: "Yesterday, the Kyiv authorities, for the first time in all of the previous years, declared their readiness to reach agreements with Russia. They gave us the written principles of a possible future agreement, ... "We think that we have worked through enough material so that a meeting between the presidents of Ukraine and the Russian Federation can be made possible (Quoted from WBUR, May 6, 2024).

Russia getting bogged down and Ukraine regaining some ground
 Then on March 31, 2022, Ukrainian forces reclaimed Bucha, and Russian forces were leaving the Kyiv region. “And as the Russian troops retrieved, the whole world saw the horror of Russia’s war crimes.” In early April Chernihiv and the Sumy regions were also reclaimed from Russian troops with Ukrainian reclaiming these areas. .
 By April 15, 2022, the situation for Ukraine war certainly look very different from the situation on february 26, just take a lok at this map dated April 15, 2022.

It has been assumed that the hoorror of Bucha and the withdrawal of Russian forces may have hardened Ukrainian resolve and led to their withdrawal from the negotiations with Russia.
 
Growing Western support and Prime Minister Johnson interference
Rapidly growing Western material support may have contributed to the hardening of the Ukrainian resolve and to the decision to leave the negotiations.
It has also been suggested that Prime Minister Johnson of the UK may contributed directly to the break down of the peace negotiations.
A commentary published by H-Diplo/RJISSF looks at the questions “Did Boris Johnson prevent and early end to the war in Ukraine?”
 What is known is that Prime Minister Johnson secretly visited Kyiv on April 10, 2022, and met with President Zelensky.
“During their bilateral meeting, Johnson apparently advised Zelensky not to entertain a compromise peace nor to offer Russia Ukrainian neutrality to end the war. Instead, Johnson encouraged Zelensky to continue fighting to decisively defeat Russia. Subsequently, Johnson was blamed for having encouraged Zelensky to ignore the opportunity to end the war within two months of Moscow’s invasion.” (The Times , January 11, 2024).
It is also rumoured that Prime Minister Johnson would have refused to let the UK become a guarantor to the possible Russia-Ukraine agreement resulting from the ongoing negotiations.
There is no doubt that Prime Minister Johnson advocated hard attitude towards the Russian invasion of Ukraine, taking his inspiration from Churchill and it possible that this might have stiffened a Churchillian like resolve in President Zelensky to continue the war and leave the negotiations.
 
After three years of war no end in sight
More than three years after the Russian invasion the war has become a continuously escalating proxy war between between Russia and West, consisting of the U.S. and the other members of the enlarged NATO, with no end in sight. Diplomatic efforts to somehow restart arminstice or peace negotiations during the Biden administration were non-existent and the few attempts, say by President Macron or Prime Minister Orban were mosty viewed as some sort of treason against the united front of U.S. and European leaders, with their senseless repetitive mantra of “Standing with Ukraine for as long it takes.”
This standing with Ukraine has only resulted in an escalating war of attrition, with very little movement on the front in Ukraine, after the first surprising Ukrainian success of pushing the Russian trops back, and the invasion of a small part of Russia. In 2025 Ukraine was pushed back over the border. Elsewhere Russia have achieved small and costly advances along the frontline.
For more than three and a half year European leaders do not seem to have had any positive idea of how to end the war, with naive souls like the Danish Prime Minister even entertaining the view that Ukraine must win.
Mostly though the Western alliance under Biden just kept plodding along with round after round of sanctions, and injections of more advanced weapons in Ukraine. But evidently scared of overstepping some invisible line that would involve them in a direct war with Russia.
 
Trump’s mercurial efforts to end the war
Two days after taking up office on January 20 President Trump in his usual style took to Truth Social to urge Russia to make a deal to stop the war:
 
“I’m going to do Russia, whose Economy is failing, and President Putin, a very big FAVOR. Settle now, and STOP this ridiculous War! IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE. If we don’t make a “deal,” and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries. Let’s get this war, which never would have started if I were President, over with! We can do it the easy way, or the hard way - and the easy way is always better. It’s time to “MAKE A DEAL.” NO MORE LIVES SHOULD BE LOST!!!”
 
Probably not the way to get Russia and Ukraine to the negotiation table. At the time he may only have had vague ideas of what he might be able to achieve. Looking at how he is acting, one might expect that it is done on purpose, just beating the grass to see what new possibilities might emerge. In a way scaring the rest of the world to react, as in strange game. Seeing what may happen when you do something outrageous, frightening or earthshattering and then take advantage from it.
 On February 12 , 2025 he really started to beat the grass, startling his European partners. In a Ukraine Defence Contact Group in Brussels his loyal henchman, Hegseth, had this stark message to his European colleagues:
 
A recognition that returning to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective
NATO membership for Ukraine is unrealistic
Troops that be needed to secure a peace, will not include U.S. troops and will not be part of a NATO mission.
 
 On the same day Trump called President Vladimir Putin in what may have been his first talk with Putin after taking office again.
According to Putin “The leaders also discussed a possible Ukraine settlement. Donald Trump spoke in favour of stopping the hostilities as soon as possible and solving the crisis peacefully. In turn, Vladimir Putin pointed out it was necessary to eliminate the root causes of the conflict and agreed with Donald Trump in that a sustainable settlement could only be reached via peaceful negotiations” (kremlin.ru February 12, 2025).
That may be said to have started a flurry of diplomatic and non-diplomatic activity. Mostly without Ukrainian or European participation.
The diplomatic activity involved U.S.-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia, Wittkoff’s repeated talks with Putin, meetings of Russia-Ukraine delegations, that resulted in prisoner exchanges.
The un-diplomatic activity being the chaotic Zelensky-Trump altercation in the Oval Office on February 28.
Followed by even more intense diplomatic activity in the coming months back and forth talks both with Zelensky and Putin in order to make possible a ceasefire. Trump himself pushing for a face-to-face meeting between Putin and Zelensky as a abrupt way to end the fighting
 Trumps mercurial diplomatic and un-diplomatic activity certainly led to activity among European leaders, not the least the creation of a Coalition of the Willing, although rather unsure what they were willing to do, except for showing their eagerness to be involved in Trump’s attempts to create peace, and their continuing verbal “standing with Ukraine for ..., for what and for how long?
 
Russian and Ukraine pressed to initiate talks in May/June 2025
In 2025 President Trump played a decisive role in pushing for talks between Russia and Ukraine, urging both sides to negotiate to end “the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II.” His administration’s involvement, including the presence of U.S. officials like Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, and special envoys, underscored his interest in a rapid resolution.
For talks on in Istanbul on June 2, 2025, Ukraine and Russia seem to have prepared proposals, or should one say repetition of old demands.
Ukraine with a roadmap for peace negotiation, that first and foremost demanded a “full and unconditional ceasefire in the sky, on land and at sea as a necessary background and prerequisite for peace negotiations.” (Reuters, June 1, 2025).
 Russia with a memorandum outlining conditions for ending the war. One option apparently containing these demands: “Kyiv to completely withdraw from the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, which Russia partially occupies but claims as its own territory. A 30-day ceasefire would enter into force once this troop withdrawal begins, the memorandum says. Ukraine would also be required to relocate its military to an agreed distance from the Russian border.” (The Moscow Times, June 2, 2025).
 No wonder that the Ukraine-Russian talks did not get very far, but an agreement on prisoner exchanges were reached before talks ended again.
 Next comes the Alaska summit.
 
Alaska summit of President Trump and President Putin
Before the meeting in Alaska on August 15, Trump’s had focused heavily on achieving an immediate ceasefire, describing it as his top priority and warning of “severe consequences” if Putin did not comply. He expressed confidence in his ability to broker a swift deal, citing his personal rapport with Putin and his belief that the war would not have started under his presidency.”
After the meeting, Trump downplayed the need for a ceasefire, stating on Truth Social that “It was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold.”
After the Alaska summit Trump seems to have warmed to a deal involving a peace agreement, accepting Putin’s demand to address “root causes” and supporting territorial concessions or land swaps. Involving that Ukraine would have to give up the not yet Russian occupied parts of Donbas, in exchange for as yet unspecified areas of land occupied by Russia.
Trump also later implied that Putin would be willing to accept Western involvement in security guarantees for Ukraine.
 The Alaska Summit certainly alarmed Ukraine and the Coalition of the Willing. Particularly trump’s endorsement of territorial concessions and de-emphasis on a ceasefire. Zelensky reiterated that ceding land, such as the rest of the Donbas, would weaken Ukraine’s defences and violate its constitution. European leaders, including those from Britain, France, and Germany, issued statements emphasizing Ukraine’s territorial integrity and threatened increased sanctions on Russia if the war continued.
Their alarm and anger over Trump seemingly becoming more aligned to Putin’s view may understandable. What they forget is that there is a reason for the war in Ukraine, a reason related to the whole question of NATO membership for Ukraine. A prospect vehemently rejected by Russia. Therefore, it is in fact quite reasonable that Trump sees negotiations for peace in Ukraine as a mostly a question of the U.S. negotiating with Russia to achieve peace. Both Europe and Ukraine play second fiddle in such negotiations.
 
A senseless escalating war continuing in 2025
Given that Russian and Ukrainian demands haven’t changed a much since the 2022 draft treaty. Here a look at today’s demands and positions compared to the 2022 draft treaty proposal and the negotiations that Ukraine left in 2022.
 
Permanent neutrality
 In the June 2024 so-called peace memorandum Russia still demands that Ukraine becomes a neutral state
Putin has reportedly softened on this issue, expressing openness to Ukraine receiving some form of security guarantees, though specifics remain unclear and are likely tied to restrictions on Ukraine’s military and NATO exclusion. This shift may reflect diplomatic efforts to appear more conciliatory, particularly in talks with Trump.
 
No NATO membership
Putin continues to demand that Ukraine abandon its NATO aspirations and that NATO provide legally binding guarantees against further eastward expansion. This remains a core condition for peace, with sources indicating Putin seeks a written pledge to halt NATO’s growth and exclude Ukraine from the alliance.
 In an NBC interview on August 24, 20225, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov touched upon the NATO question: “The violation of Russian security interests was one of the root causes of what has happened. And this relates to many years of lies when we were promised, starting from 1990 and then many times we were promised that NATO would not be expanding. And the OSCE summit documents, which I quoted, said in the past, and nobody cancelled it, that no organization must claim superiority in Europe, and NATO has been doing exactly the opposite.”
With Trump’s rejecting a possible NATO membership for Ukraine, it looks as if this condition must also be accepted by Ukraine, thus opening the possibility of a deal.
Except that is, that Ukraine demands for robust security guarantees including from the U.S. and other NATO members in some kind of NATO Article 5-like guarantee.
 
Strict limits on armed forces of Ukraine
 In the June 2024 Russian peace memorandum still demand “a cap on Ukraine’s military capabilities and capacity, and for a dissolution of “Ukrainian nationalist formations” within the military.” (lawfaremedia.org July 11, 2024).
This is certainly not what Ukraine and the Coalition of the Willing is aiming for. Instead they want Ukraine to posses such a military capability that would it represent a deterrent against a new Russian attack, and thus this in itself represent a security guarantee.
In early 2014 Ukraine may only have had an army of 130.000 although also having large number reservists. Now, according to Statista Ukraine has 900,000 active soldiers in 2025, with a reserve force of 1.2million and 100,000 in paramilitary units.
To solve the problem of security for Ukraine a compromise is needed. Russia might have to give up demanding a limit on Ukrainein forces and accept that Ukraine itself would have the troops and weapons necessary to assure their own future security.
 
Allowing membership of the EU
 In 2022 Russia was already accepting that Ukraine might apply for membership of the EU, and this is still the case. Thus, having the same position as in 2022 draft treaty.
 
Security for Ukraine
This is the other big issue, but the Russian demands may have softened on this issue, expressing openness to Ukraine receiving some form of security guarantees, though specifics remain unclear. This shift may reflect diplomatic efforts to appear more conciliatory, particularly in talks with Trump.
In the recent interview Foreign Minister Lavrov actually harked back the 2022 draft treaty:
“As regards the security guarantees for Ukraine, those principles proposed by the Ukrainian delegation, I underline this once again, they provided for the creation of a group of guarantors, this group containing permanent members of the Security Council: Russia, U.S., China, UK and France, plus they mentioned Germany, Turkiye and any other country which would be interested to join this group of guarantors. And the guarantors would be guaranteeing the security of Ukraine, which must be neutral, which must be non-aligned with any military bloc and which must be non-nuclear.”
Now what Ukraine and the Coalition of the Willing is something rather different, in a way more one-sided.
In the Coalition of the Willing Prime Minister Starmer and President Macron had floated the idea of deploying around 30,000 Western troops on the ground in Ukraine after an armistice or peace deal. Now, this actually mean much more 30.000, as many more are required for sustained rotation. Later talks have been about a much smaller number of troops.
Since then the whole question of guarantees involving troops in Ukraine has become really confused.
While the Coalition of the Willing includes 31 countries, only 10 are apparently willing to send troops to Ukraine when the war ends. But according to Ursula von der Leyen European capitals are working on “Pretty precise plans” for sending troops to Ukraine.
Then Chancellor Merz said that this was not correct, and spoke out against discussing ground troops in Ukraine for the time being. According to Merz “Niemand redet über Bodentruppen in der Ukraine zum jetzigen Zeitpunkt.” For now, there is only a discussion about security guarantees in the event of a ceasefire. Only then can "many things" be implemented. (ZDF Sommer interview, August 31, 2025). Recently German media has even mentioned that Germany might only be willing to pay for Ukrainian troops, and not be prepared to commit own Troops.
Any way both the Coalition of the Willing and Ukraine insist that the U.S. must be involved in providing security guarantees.
With little apparent interest in getting the U.S. really involved, Trump has said "We'll give them (Ukraine) very good protection, very good security." Since then, some vague ideas of U.S support has been aired by Trump an interview on Fox News: “When it comes to security, they’re [ The Coalition of the Willing] willing to put people on the ground ... We’re willing to help them with things, especially — probably you could talk about by air, because there’s nobody that has the kind of stuff we have, really they don’t have. But I don’t think it’s going to be a problem.”
Not really enough for Zelensky and the Coalition of the Willing, they want something more concrete and binding, while the U.S. does not want to become involved.
It must also be remembered, that Russia is not willing to accept troops from NATO countries in Ukraine. A week ago, repeating the position by rejecting “any scenarios involving the deployment of NATO troops in Ukraine." (cbc.ca August 20, 2025). Perhaps understandable as this as this would seem to undermine the Russia’s No-NATO demand. One of root causes of the war.
 Now, according to Financial Times, Trump is said to have proposed that Chinese peacekeepers might help monitor a neutral zone along a possible armistice line in Ukraine, that might be the result of a peace deal. While troops from non-NATO countries may satisfy Russian demands everything still seems to very much up in the air.
One might argue that having troops in Ukraine with a strong mandate, would in itself represent an increased risk of a wider war, involving Western guarantor states. This would also seem to be the view of the more unwilling of the Coalition.
A less risky solution would involve re-arming Ukraine as much as possible with weapons and material support from the Coalition of the Willing, but no foreign troops. This in itself would make it costly for Russia to re-open hostilities.
It might be accompanied by something like the Russian demands for guarantor states somewhat like in the 2022 draft treaty, which was to involve Great Britain, China, the Russian Federation, the United States, the French Republic, (Republic of Belarus, Republic of Turkey). What may have been forgotten is that Russia may be interested in guarantees against a situation in which Ukraine later is feeling strong enough to re-enter the war to regain territory that has have been lost.
 
Territorial demands
In a so-called peace memorandum in June 2024, President Putin still wanted Ukraine to withdraw and cede the four big territories of Donetsk, Luhansk (the Donbas), Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, before any peace negotiations.
With the summit in Alaska, it sems that President Putin has compromised on his earlier territorial demands. Now he wants Ukraine to withdrew completely from Donetsk and Luhansk. Although at present Russian forces only control around 99% of Luhansk and 75% of Donetsk. In return he would freeze the front in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson and hand over occupied areas in the regions of Kharkiv, Sumy and Dnipropetrovsk.
 It would mean that Ukraine would have to give up territory not yet control by Russian troops. Thereby giving up an important line of strong defences especially in the Donetsk.
These Russian demands for a peace deal have been vehemently rejected by President Zelensky, arguing that giving up the fortress belt in the Donbas would make parts of Ukraine defenceless.
Zelensky argueing: "If we're talking about simply withdrawing from the east, we cannot do that, ... It is a matter of our country's survival, involving the strongest defensive lines." (reuters.com, August 22, 2025).
 President Trump meanwhile seemed to have accepted the necessity of some kind land swapping deal between Russia and Ukraine, arguing that it would be “good” and “bad” for both countries.
 
Here a map of the areas involved , showing how much has been occupied by Russia and marked the unoccupied areas of Luhansk and Donetsk:

In order to help understand the Russian demands it may be important take a look at ethno- linguistic make up of Ukraine as shown in this Wikimedia Commons map, although it may now be somewhat outdated.

 
 In relation to questions of historical creation of Ukrainian borders, another map may also help understand the territorial problems:

Note that border defined in 1922 may have have less to do with what one may see as ethnic Ukrainian and more with defining the big very import industrial areas of the Donbas.
Note also that it was Khrushchev who decided to cede the Crimea to Ukraine in 1954.
 
Demands on related to language and de-nazification
Russia is still demanding that Ukraine accepts Russian as the second state language and “ensures “full rights, freedoms, and interests” of the Russian and Russian-speaking population in Ukraine” together with a ban on “heroization and propaganda of Nazism” and on nationalistic parties.” (lawfaremedia.org July 11, 2024).
According to the Human Rights Research Center (HRRC) “Ukraine has steadily enacted legislation for the “de-russification” of Ukraine. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, these linguistic changes have been applied alongside de-communization efforts, like renaming streets and even cities that previously bore Soviet-era historical references in 2015. The Law on State Language passed in 2019, making Ukrainian the only official language, stipulating its use in public life, from usage by public sector workers and government institutions to a 90% quota of national television and radio airtime.” (HRRC September 11, 2024)
 A Wikimedia Commons has this old map Russian language support in Ukraine:

“Maybe they will have to fight a little longer”
 In an interview with The Daily Caller in late August President Trump still talked of the possibility of a trilateral meeting between himself, Putin and Zelensky
“A [trilateral] would happen. A [bilateral], I don’t know about, but a tri will happen. But,
you know, sometimes people aren’t ready for it. ” Using the analogy of two boys fighting in the playgound he argued: ““After a little while, they’re very happy to stop. Do you understand that? It’s almost that way. Sometimes they have to fight for a little bit before you can get them to stop.” (Emphasis added). Well, they have now fought for more than three years... so perhaps it is time for the weakest to give in, just like in the playground.
 While there is no doubt that Trump is striving to find a way to stop the fight, in his own mercurial back and forth way, one wonders if European leaders are not time and time again throwing a proverbial spanner into Trump’s plans for a deal. Not really accepting that standing with Ukraine for as it takes, they may just prolong a senseless war of immense human and material costs and make the risk of a wider war even greater.
Arguing that the defence of Ukraine is the defence of the whole of Europe, they are willing to buy arms that the U. S. will no longer deliver for free , like more Patriot systems and missiles or the latest 3,350 RAMS (Extended Range Attack Munitions). Consisting of air launched missiles with longer range than the Storm Shadow/Scalp missiles delivered in smaller numbers by UK and France.
What do they hope to achieve? What would now be different from earlier escalations meant to force Russia back or at least to negotiating table? How would supporting and strengthening President Zelensky in his impossible demands make peace possible?
What is ignored except by a few European leaders, is that Europe with the escalation and the rapid built up of European forces and military capabilities make war with Russia more possible, contrary to what they are postulating, when arguing that “kriegstüchtigkeit” will prevent a Russian invasion of some other part of Europe within 3 to 5 years.
 
Bringing peace to Europe and deals to the U.S.
Although it may appear that President Trump is prepared to concede to Russian demands for peace in Ukraine—something the leaders of Europe, find abhorrent and foolish—it may be them that are naïve and perhaps even misguided.
European leaders should lift their gaze and see what immense possibilities may result from peace in Ukraine and wider accommodations between Trump and Putin.
This must certainly be what Trump and present administration have set their eyes upon, and the reason they seem to be ignoring Ukraine demands, as well their constant wailing.
Accepting Russia’s red line demands will surely make it possible to reduce the talked up Russian threat, that is scaring leaders of Europe. They should instead try to stretch their minds and eye the possible benefits also for Europe that President Trump may eying in relation to peace between the U.S. and Russia. See also “Trump aiming for mightier deals than myopic Europe” (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/trump-aiming-mightier-deals-than-myopic-europe-verner-c-petersen-fficf).