Russia’s Uncompromising Demands in US-Led Ukraine Peace Negotiations
Russia’s uncompromising stance on territorial demands and European security architecture presents a challenge to peace efforts, according to reports following diplomatic talks involving US special envoy Jared Kushner.
The diplomatic push yielded meaningful progress toward an agreement to end the war, Kushner reported after three days of talks involving Ukrainian and Russian negotiators alongside the presidents of both countries. Yet public signals from Moscow indicate little readiness to make concessions on core issues.
Territorial Demands Across Five Regions
Full Russian control over the Donbas remains a non-negotiable prerequisite for any peace agreement, a stance President Vladimir Putin and other Kremlin officials have emphasized for months. Moscow fomented war in the Donbas in 2014 after seizing the Crimean Peninsula, controlling portions of Donetsk and Luhansk long before launching the full-scale invasion in February 2022.
❗️ Putin on Ukrainian territories: Russia is aware that Ukrainians are raising the issue of "gray zones." For the Russian Federation, there is only one acceptable demarcation line with Ukraine — the state border.
Russia now occupies virtually all of Luhansk and about 80 percent of Donetsk. Ukrainian forces have blocked the capture of the remaining territory, including a fortress belt encompassing Slovyansk and Kramatorsk.
Putin has repeatedly said that Russia will take the rest of the region by force if diplomacy fails. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy maintains that Kyiv will not relinquish land defended by its soldiers.
Moscow’s territorial appetite extends further. In September 2022, Russia claimed the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya, and Kherson regions as its own. While holding a majority of Kherson and Zaporizhzhya, Russian forces do not control their eponymous capital cities, having been pushed back across the Dnieper River from Kherson in November 2022.
Putin Recognizes Only the State Border as Demarcation Line
Meeting with US envoys Kushner and Steve Witkoff in the Kremlin on November 12, Putin addressed questions about gray zones by declaring that Russia recognizes only one line of demarcation.
“For us, there is only one line of demarcation: the line of the state border,” Putin said.
That statement referred not to the internationally recognized post-1991 border, but to Moscow’s 2022 territorial claims. Chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky reinforced this stance on Russian state TV, asserting that flags raised by Russia must not be lowered.
Medinsky indicated that Moscow intends to retain territory along the state border in Ukraine’s Kharkiv and Sumy regions, as well as Russian-occupied land in the Dnipropetrovsk region. He said that Putin ordered forces to create a substantial security zone inside Ukraine that continues to expand.
“This zone is now quite substantial. It is expanding, and it will continue to expand. I don’t see any possibility of exchanging these territories,” Medinsky said on Russian state TV.
Samuel Charap, a senior political scientist at the Rand Corporation, wrote on X that Putin’s statement reiterated hardline territorial positions that leave little negotiating space.
Remaking European Security Architecture
Discussions have also focused on creating a broader European security architecture, an objective tied to long-standing Kremlin goals of reversing Cold War geopolitical losses. “going to involve more than Ukraine,” President Donald Trump said on November 5 of prospects for a big, beautiful agreement.
this is quite an important statement from Putin today, a clear reiteration of the hardline position on territory that has emerged over the last year. doesn't leave a lot of negotiating space — on this issue at least. https://t.co/vGFDUYb5zC
Medinsky outlined goals of establishing a modern Yalta and Potsdam to preserve peace for decades or centuries. The initiative has generated concern in Europe and Ukraine that larger powers might decide their fate, potentially rewarding Russia with expanded regional influence.
These talks coincide with discussions regarding a potential summit between Putin, Trump, and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the November 18-19 APEC summit in China. Zelenskyy warned that such a meeting could result in a redistribution of spheres of influence.
Russia Seeks to Restrict NATO and Western Troop Deployments
Russia’s posture draws parallels to draft treaties delivered to Washington and NATO in December 2021 before the full-scale invasion. Those proposals demanded an end to NATO enlargement, restrictions on military activity in Ukraine, and the withdrawal of military deployments to 1997 alliance borders.
During a conference in Moscow on November 11, a Russian Foreign Ministry official outlined potential agreements including collective defense alliances and bilateral nonaggression pacts. Analysts note the Kremlin prefers bilateral engagement with European nations over dealing with NATO or the EU directly.
Russia continues to demand that Ukraine be barred from joining NATO and rejects security guarantees akin to Article 5. “We have already talked about this: For us, they are a legitimate target, meaning the war [would] resume immediately,” Putin said regarding any post-deal deployment of Western troops to Ukraine.