Volodymyr Zelensky, in the next phase of talks to end the war in Ukraine, intends to draw a red line at the most contentious issue on the table: the Russian demand for Ukraine\u2019s sovereign territory. As long as he remains the nation\u2019s president, Zelensky will not agree to give up land in exchange for peace, Ukraine\u2019s chief negotiator, Andriy Yermak, told me today in an exclusive interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot a single sane person today would sign a document to give up territory,\u201d said Yermak, who has served as Zelensky\u2019s chief of staff, lead negotiator, and closest aide throughout the full-scale war with Russia.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs long as Zelensky is president, no one should count on us giving up territory. He will not sign away territory,\u201d he told me by telephone from Kyiv. \u201cThe constitution prohibits this. Nobody can do that unless they want to go against the Ukrainian constitution and the Ukrainian people.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the question of land, Ukraine is prepared to discuss only where the line should be drawn to demarcate what the warring sides control. \u201cAll we can realistically talk about right now is really to define the line of contact,\u201d Yermak said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what we need to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Ukrainian position for the next round of talks, which Yermak laid out for the first time, will sharply constrain the space available for negotiators to reach a peace deal. Russia has shown no willingness to back away from its demand for Ukrainian territory, including parts of the country that Russian forces do not control. Even though negotiators have made progress toward an agreement in recent days, they remain far apart on the crucial question of territory, where the Russian and Ukrainian positions appear difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile.<\/p>\n
Russia first seized parts of Ukraine in 2014, when it annexed Crimea in a swift and nearly bloodless land grab. In September 2022, during the first year of the full-scale invasion, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that four additional regions of southern and eastern Ukraine\u2014Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, comprising about 15 percent of the country\u2019s territory\u2014would \u201cforever\u201d be a part of Russia. The Kremlin then staged a referendum to approve the annexation of these regions and to define them as Russian territory under the Russian constitution, making it politically difficult for Putin to reverse his territorial claims.<\/p>\n
The problem for Putin is that Ukraine still controls large parts of Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia. The Russian military has been fighting for nearly four years to seize all of those regions by force, with the most intense battles centered around Donetsk, part of Ukraine\u2019s industrial heartland. Ukrainian forces have dug in to defend the areas of Donetsk they still control, building fortifications and fielding weapons that have managed to hold back the invaders. Putin has tried to gain control of that territory through negotiations, offering to stop the Russian onslaught if Ukraine gives it up without a fight.<\/p>\n