Security guarantees, and not land, figure to be the thorniest issue in any peace deal. When Ukraine and Russia held peace talks in 2022, Russia eventually balked at the proposed deal’s critical component: an arrangement binding other countries to come to Ukraine’s defense if it were ever attacked again.
Russia has long said that it considers Ukrainian entry into NATO unacceptable. It has signaled that such a move would be a deal breaker for any cease-fire agreement, while also indicating it will want to keep control of the territory it has captured in Ukraine.
Discussions over a potential settlement have heated up since the election last week of Mr. Trump, who has vowed to press for immediate talks. That’s a shift from the Biden administration’s longtime position that the timing and terms of any settlement should be left to Ukraine. Mr. Trump has been openly skeptical about continuing American aid to Ukraine, and has said he can bring about an end to the war in one day — without saying how.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has repeatedly tried to portray Ukraine as the intransigent party when it comes to peace talks, while hinting at settlement terms that are only favorable to him. Ukrainian and Western officials view his stance as a demand for capitulation.
An immediate issue for any cease-fire along the front is Ukraine’s occupation of parts of Kursk, in southwest Russia, which the Ukrainian military invaded in August. Kyiv sees the territory as a potential bargaining chip during talks, but in Moscow, Ukraine’s departure is widely seen as a prerequisite for beginning negotiations. American officials say that some 50,000 Russian and North Korean troops have massed in Kursk in preparation for a counteroffensive to drive Ukraine from Russian land.
If Ukrainians are driven from Kursk, Russia could accept a cease-fire along the front line by next spring, Konstantin Zatulin, a lawmaker in Mr. Putin’s political party, said in an interview on Monday. “Everything will be based on facts,” he said. “Everything we have is ours; everything Ukraine has is Ukraine’s.”
To some of Moscow’s hard-liners, the points of dispute, including territorial claims, make a settlement by next spring unlikely.
“It will be difficult for us to come to an agreement precisely because even our softest position involves additional territorial concessions from Ukraine,” said Konstantin Malofeev, a conservative businessman allied with the Kremlin.
The senior Ukrainian official said Kyiv would want to ensure any cease-fire line would not hurt the country’s economic recovery after the war by, for example, leaving industrial areas too insecure for investment. The width of a demilitarized zone — a buffer area between the two armies — would also be a key consideration, the officials said.
There are competing factions in Mr. Trump’s orbit who have expressed a range of views on Ukraine. A position voiced by JD Vance, the American vice president-elect, largely aligns with Kremlin talking points. His former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has advocated more robust military support than the Biden administration has been willing to offer.
Perhaps the most detailed clue of Mr. Trump’s views came in a July interview with Fox News.
“I would tell Zelensky, no more — you got to make a deal,” Mr. Trump said of President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. “I would tell Putin, If you don’t make a deal, we’re going to give him a lot.”
Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky spoke last week, but neither side made public what was discussed.
Mr. Zelensky has been appealing for support in the United States and European nations for what he calls a “peace through strength” strategy that would shore up Ukraine’s army and potentially improve its position on the battlefield before talks commence.
But Ukraine’s plan is only one of several approaches, including a proposal by China and Brazil and another by Turkey that would address security for Black Sea shipping but could be expanded to include other issues.
For now, Ukraine is losing ground as quickly as at almost any time since the first days of the invasion. Russia has honed an effective if costly tactic of grinding forward through small infantry assaults, trading personnel for land. With too few soldiers, Ukraine has resorted to shuffling troops between hot spots on the front to prevent a collapse of the lines.
In its own plan, called the Peace Formula — widely seen as its starting point for negotiations — Ukraine has laid out 10 demands, including a full withdrawal, prosecution of war crimes and payment of reparations. At a summit in June, at which Russia was not present, those demands were not addressed.
But about 80 countries endorsed three other points in Ukraine’s plan: an exchange of prisoners of war and Russia’s release of civilian hostages; safeguarding nuclear sites such as the occupied Zaporizhzhia power plant; and guaranteeing free commercial shipping on the Black Sea.
Since then, Mr. Zelensky has softened Ukraine’s position, sending the foreign minister to China to welcome a Chinese role in talks and saying Russia could be invited to a future negotiating session on the Peace Formula.
Support for ceding territory in exchange for peace is rising among Ukrainians. A poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in October showed 32 percent of Ukrainians would support such an agreement, up from 19 percent last year.
But securing a favorable settlement for Ukraine while Russia is advancing would be extremely difficult, said Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a Ukrainian former minister of defense. Russian negotiators would be unlikely to settle only for territory their army had already taken.
“Whoever is in a winning position sets the terms,” he said. “It is true for governments or businesses.”
