As negotiators gear up for another round of U.S.-brokered talks to end the war in Ukraine, Moscow and Kyiv remain deadlocked over the core disagreements that have defined the conflict since it began.

On Monday, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his negotiating team could meet with the Russians and Americans as soon as Sunday. The Ukrainian president is ready to sit down with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, according to his foreign minister Andrii Sybiha. But, Sybiha acknowledged, “the most sensitive issues are still unresolved.”

Before talks last weekend in the United Arab Emirates, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff said the differences had been boiled down to one, “solvable,” issue. Speaking in Davos, U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters he believed a deal on Ukraine was “reasonably close.”

And yet, Moscow and Kyiv emerged from the UAE talks stalled over three issues at the heart of the conflict: Russia’s demand for Ukrainian territory, the future of Ukraine’s security guarantees and whether fighting should stop before or after a deal is reached.

Territory

The remaining issue Witkoff was presumably referring to is the fate of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, referred to by insiders as the “territorial question.”

Though Russia can no longer realistically hope to seize all of Ukraine anytime soon, the Russian president still aims to acquire, at the very least, all of Donbas on top of the already annexed Crimean peninsula. 

Moscow proposes a framework it calls the “Anchorage formula,” in which Ukraine would have to cede all of Donbas, including areas that Russia has been unable to conquer. The Kremlin says that is what Putin and Trump agreed to when they met in Alaska last year.

But for Kyiv, surrendering territory would be both illegal and massively unpopular. 

While Zelenskyy has said he is prepared to consider a scenario under which the area would be demilitarized and designated a “free economic zone” but would remain officially part of Ukraine, Moscow has made it clear that that is not enough.

After Witkoff’s latest visit to Moscow, Putin’s aide Yury Ushakov reiterated the Kremlin’s stance that “reaching a long-term settlement can’t be expected without solving the territorial issue” — insisting once again that progress in the talks hinges on Moscow getting the entirety of Donbas. 

On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged the impasse over Donbas. “It’s still a bridge we have to cross,” Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations committee. “It’s still a gap, but at least we’ve been able to narrow down the issue set to one central one, and it will probably be a very difficult one.”

Another difference is over who should run the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, which is close to the front line and currently under Russian control.

Zelenskyy wants the plant to be jointly controled by Ukraine and the U.S., while Moscow wants in on any deal, proposing instead that it would share control over the plant with Washington, or, possibly, Kyiv.

Security

Then there’s the matter of so-called security guarantees: promised support for Ukraine from other countries in case Russia launches another attempt at a full-scale invasion.

Earlier this month, Britain and France agreed to deploy troops to Ukraine once a deal is reached. Witkoff hailed the security plan as being “as strong as anyone has ever seen” but remained vague on how far the U.S. itself would go in defending Ukraine. According to a Financial Times report published on Tuesday, the Trump administration has made post-war security guarantees contingent on Ukraine giving up Donbas. (The White House has denied the claim.)

The so-called 20-point plan floated by the U.S. envisages Ukraine joining the European Union in 2027. Membership in the EU includes a provision calling on countries to come to one another’s defense in case of an invasion. The EU has begun talks with Ukraine about joining but has not set a date.

Moscow, for its part, has insisted it will not accept the presence of troops from NATO countries in Ukraine. Instead, it has demanded its own “security guarantees.” 

The Kremlin says it will only feel safe when the question of Ukraine joining NATO is forever off the table, when Ukraine’s army is capped at 600,000 — from around 800,000 now — and when Moscow is given an effective veto over any future decisions on Ukraine’s defense.

Ceasefire

For ordinary Ukrainians, however, their most immediate concern is likely to be the question of a ceasefire. Kyiv wants an immediate cessation of hostilities. Moscow insists a deal must be struck before it will consider a pause in the fighting.

Until such a deal is finally reached, “Russia will continue to consistently pursue the objectives of the special military operation,” Putin’s aide Ushakov said after Witkoff’s visit to Moscow, using the Kremlin’s euphemism for the war.

Russian missiles continue to pound Ukraine every day, crippling its electricity grid and plunging hundreds of thousands into darkness and subzero winter temperatures. On Wednesday, Zelenskyy accused Moscow of “terrorism” after a Russian drone struck a passenger train, killing five people.

Key differences

Both Russia and Ukraine appear keen to show the U.S. president they are cooperating.

“The fact that a whole raft of complex issues are being discussed at an expert level could already be considered progress and the beginning of a dialogue,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Wednesday. 

As recently as December, Russia threatened to review its participation in the peace process after it said Ukraine attacked one of Putin’s residences with several drones (Kyiv quickly denied the accusation, which has been widely discredited, including by U.S. intelligence).

Volodymyr Fesenko, a Ukrainian political analyst, expressed cautious optimism. “The fact that various technical aspects are being discussed is already a positive development,” he said.

But, analysts emphasize, there is a crucial difference between the two warring sides: While Ukraine is showing a willingness to compromise, Russia is merely going through the motions, while sticking to its initial goal of subjugating Ukraine.

Putin has “become obsessed with this war and with his urgent need to break Ukraine,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of R.Politik, a political consultancy specialized in Russia. “He believes it’s sacred, existential, and if he starts conceding, Russia will be ruined.”

She added Russia’s insistence on getting all of Donbas is merely a stalling tactic.

“It’s a sort of a game from the Russian side where they agree to talk about a supposed peace settlement, while meaning something completely different,” said Stanovaya. “They can talk about the subject for hours, but it has nothing to do with reality.”

Meanwhile, on the Ukrainian side, it’s not clear that, even if Zelenskyy were prepared to give up Donbas, he could push such an agreement through the political process. The Ukrainian president has floated the idea of staging a referendum on the issue, or even national elections, but insisted there be a ceasefire first. 

Polls show that Ukrainians are prepared to accept some kind of fair deal but that they have little faith in the U.S.-led negotiations.

“Last year, there were still high hopes that Trump might help end the war,” said Fesenko. “Now, there no longer are.”

There’s also a limit, he said, as to how much the Ukrainian president will be prepared to concede.

“Zelenskyy wants to go down in history as the president who saved Ukraine,” he said. “Not as the one who lost the war.”