Ukraine peace talks: What are Kyiv and Moscow’s positions?<\/p>\n
The two sides are set to present their visions of what a peace settlement could look like at the negotiations, which will be presided over by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.<\/p>\n
Despite the flurry of diplomacy urged on by US President Donald Trump, their demands have thus far been irreconcilable.<\/p>\n
Russia has repeatedly demanded that it retain territory in southern and eastern Ukraine that it occupies, and for Kyiv to cede even more land.<\/p>\n
Moscow in 2022 annexed four Ukrainian regions — Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson — despite not having full control over them.<\/p>\n
Russia also annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.<\/p>\n
President Vladimir Putin last year demanded that Ukraine pull its forces out of parts of those regions that its army still controls as a prerequisite to any peace settlement.<\/p>\n
At a first round of talks last month, Ukraine accused Moscow of repeating those demands and threatening to accelerate a ground offensive into the Sumy and Kharkiv regions, over which Russia has made no formal claim.<\/p>\n
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said recognition of Moscow’s ownership of these territories was “imperative” for any negotiations.<\/p>\n
Ukraine has said it will never recognise its occupied territories, including Crimea, as Russian.<\/p>\n
But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Kyiv may be forced to try to secure their return through diplomatic means — effectively conceding that Russia could maintain control over some land in any peace deal.<\/p>\n
Russia has also demanded that Ukraine be barred from joining the NATO military alliance and has repeatedly said it wants Zelensky removed from office.<\/p>\n
Russia had intended to topple Zelensky when it launched its invasion in 2022, with Putin calling in a televised address for Ukraine’s generals to oust him in a coup d’etat and then open talks with Moscow.<\/p>\n
Putin in March floated the idea of Ukraine being put under a UN-backed “temporary administration”, refreshing his call to essentially remove Zelensky.<\/p>\n
Russian officials have throughout the war called for the “de-militarisation” and “de-Nazification” of Ukraine — casting Kyiv as a neo-Nazi “regime”.<\/p>\n
Kyiv and the West have rejected those narratives.<\/p>\n
Russia has also sought at times to limit the size of Ukraine’s army, wants Ukraine to be declared a neutral state and for Western countries to stop supplying it with weapons.<\/p>\n
Zelensky has for months been calling for “security guarantees” for Ukraine to stop Russia from invading again.<\/p>\n
His top demand would be for Ukraine to be admitted to NATO, or for Ukraine to fall under the military alliance’s Article Five collective defence term.<\/p>\n
Trump has, however, dismissed the possibility of Ukraine joining the bloc, and Russia says NATO membership would be “unacceptable”.<\/p>\n
Instead, Kyiv is pushing for some other form of Western military commitment that would deter Moscow.<\/p>\n
Britain and France are leading discussions about a possible European troop deployment to enforce any ceasefire, among a group of countries dubbed the “coalition of the willing”.<\/p>\n
But Kyiv still wants Washington to back up any “security guarantee”.<\/p>\n
Moscow has said it would not accept troops from NATO countries being deployed to Ukraine in any capacity.<\/p>\n
Zelensky wants an immediate and unconditional ceasefire to cover combat on air, sea and land.<\/p>\n
Kyiv says meaningful discussions over a long-term peace deal can only happen once fighting has paused.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ukraine peace talks: What are Kyiv and Moscow’s positions? The two sides are set to present their visions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2299,2301,12,8041,9440,332,184,657,753,333,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-152757","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-global-politics","9":"tag-moscow","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-nuclear-weapons","12":"tag-radio","13":"tag-russia","14":"tag-section-newsworld-news","15":"tag-ukraine","16":"tag-ukraine-war","17":"tag-vladimir-putin","18":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114615197598379886","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}