Russia is considering withdrawing from the ongoing US-led peace talks with Ukraine if Kiev does not agree to territorial concessions demanded by Moscow, the Bloomberg news agency has quoted sources close to the Kremlin as saying.
According to these anonymous sources familiar with the talks, Russian officials are increasingly inclined to believe that there is no point in continuing U.S.-led peace talks with Ukraine unless Kiev agrees to withdraw its troops from the Donetsk region. This remains Russia’s main demand. At the same time, Russia is said to be ready to sign a draft memorandum on a peace agreement if Ukraine relents.
According to Bloomberg’s source, Russia is ready to withdraw its troops from the parts of Sumy, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions it has occupied, and will not insist on extending control in Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions (all of their territory, even that controlled by Ukraine, Moscow considers Russian – as do Donetsk and Luhansk regions and Crimea).
In addition, according to the agency’s interlocutor, Russia will agree to US-led ceasefire monitoring and give up the demand to limit the number of the Ukrainian army.
The future of the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant is still under discussion.
According to the agency’s interlocutors, the talks scheduled for next week (tentatively 4-5 March) will be crucial, and it will be clear whether the sides can move towards a real agreement on ending the war or whether the process will reach an impasse.
Moscow has not yet commented on Bloomberg’s reports, but earlier Russia repeatedly said that the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from Donbas was a mandatory requirement. At the same time, there were other demands, which Bloomberg does not mention.
The White House also did not comment on the reports.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly said that he would not hand over Ukrainian-controlled territories to Russian control.
Several rounds of trilateral meetings between Ukraine, the US and Russia on ending the war took place during January and February. No specific results were reported. However, as a result of the meeting on 5 February, the delegations reached an agreement on the exchange of prisoners of war, the first in five months.
US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steven Witkoff recently said in an interview with Fox News that he expects “good news” in the coming weeks, and also admits that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will meet with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
The US President himself said before the talks in Geneva on 17-18 February that Ukraine should “get to the negotiating table quickly”. Earlier, Trump said that he believes Russia wants to conclude an agreement amid the war in Ukraine.
Despite US efforts to mediate an end to the war, Russia has shown no willingness to back down from its tough demands, which include Ukraine giving up territories in Donbass. The Kremlin continues to reject Western security guarantees for Ukraine and has signalled compliance with its maximalist goals in the war, ISW analysts noted earlier. Russian officials are signalling that Russia will not be satisfied with territorial concessions alone, the analysts said.
Meanwhile, Ukraine insists on strong security guarantees from the United States and European allies to help protect it from future Russian aggression.