18.2.2026
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has claimed that his country is being put under pressure to concede territory as peace talks brooked by the US has collapsed.
In Wednesday’s talks Russia and Ukraine held on to their positions with neither side ready to compromise and bring the four years old war to an end.
The talks wrapped up after just two hours, much shorter than the six hours of meetings on Tuesday, according to the head of Russia’s delegation.
Zelensky told Axios on Tuesday it was ‘not fair’ that Ukraine – and not Russia – was facing more pressure, adding that lasting peace would not be achieved if ‘victory’ was just handed to Moscow.
The US has been pushing for an end to the war but has so far failed to broker a compromise between Moscow and Kyiv on the key issue of territory.
Russia is pushing for full control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region as part of any deal and has threatened to take it by force if Kyiv does not cave at the negotiating table.
But Ukraine has rejected this demand, which is politically and militarily fraught, and signalled it will not sign a deal without security guarantees that deter Russia from invading again.
Russia occupies around one-fifth of Ukraine – including the Crimean Peninsula it seized in 2014 – and areas that Moscow-backed separatists had taken prior to the 2022 invasion.
Ukraine says handing Russia more territory will effectively ‘reward’ Russia for invading and embolden it to attack again.
Russia has been slowly seizing territory across the sprawling front line for months, claiming control of villages in the southern Zaporizhzhia region and northern Sumy region on Wednesday. With Daily Mail reports