Four years into the war, Russia’s campaign in Ukraine has settled into a grinding stalemate, with limited territorial gains and fragile negotiations failing to bridge persistent divides over territory and security guarantees
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Four years ago, Russian armed forces crossed into Ukraine from Belarus in the north, Crimea in the south, Donbas in the south-east, and Kharkiv and Sumy in Northeastern Ukraine. Russia’s aims included the assertion of its red lines on Ukraine by seeking the country’s demilitarisation and preventing Kyiv from joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). Moscow anticipated a swift victory, expecting to subdue Ukraine within a fortnight. However, more than 1,461 days later, Ukrainian forces have been able to sustain their defence against Russian advances. As of January this year, Russia’s Ukraine campaign became the longest Russian war in the past 100 years in the European theatre, surpassing the Soviet Union’s campaign against Nazi Germany during the Second World War. With mounting human and material losses on both sides, interest in bringing the conflict to a negotiated settlement has increased. The election of US President Donald Trump signalled a policy shift on the Ukraine conflict, reflected in Washington taking a conciliatory position towards Russia, which led to a series of negotiations across various formats between Russian, American, and then Ukrainian negotiators.
Despite these diplomatic efforts, hostilities continue unabated, and the peace process remains highly fragile. Put simply, any deal that does not address the root causes of the conflict and Ukraine’s security interests is likely to collapse.
As anticipated, the negotiations have not yielded tangible results thus far. However, this year’s trilateral negotiations among the three countries reflected a degree of pragmatism. Despite these diplomatic efforts, hostilities continue unabated, and the peace process remains highly fragile. Put simply, any deal that does not address the root causes of the conflict and Ukraine’s security interests is likely to collapse.
The battlefield tempo has shifted in Russia's favour since 2024. Last year, Russian forces captured approximately 1 percent of Ukrainian territory, exceeding the combined territorial gains of 2023 and 2024. Russia reclaimed its lost territories in the Kursk region and opened a new front in Sumy, in Northeastern Ukraine. New gains were made in Donetsk, marked by the capture of Pokrovsk, Siversk, Myrnohrad, and Huliapole in Zaporizhzhia. At present, Russia claims to control 99 percent of the Luhansk region, 78 percent of Donetsk, 75 percent of Kherson, and 75 percent of Zaporizhzhia, and has made negligible advances in the regions of Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, and Sumy. Facing acute manpower shortages and reduced American military assistance compared to levels under the Biden administration, Ukraine’s defence has been stretched thin. Moscow has sought to exploit this vulnerability by applying sustained pressure across multiple sectors of the contact line.
Despite the increased tempo, however, the conflict has remained largely positional. After four years of war, Russia controls only a fifth of the Ukrainian territory, underscoring Kyiv’s ability to slow down the Russian advance. Alongside existing American military assistance pledged under the previous administration and a growing European commitment to scaling up military aid to Kyiv, Ukraine has developed a relative advantage in waging a limited-arms warfare through the use of precision-guided tools and artificial intelligence-enabled drones. This is evidenced in Ukrainian strikes on critical Russian military airbases, military installations, and energy infrastructure, disrupting domestic energy value chains and compounding the economic strain generated by four years of debilitating sanctions. As a result, Moscow has increasingly relied on its emergency reserves — the National Wealth Fund — to stabilise its economy. Meanwhile, despite mounting war fatigue, key appointments — such as the replacement of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, who had resigned over corruption charges, with Kyrylo Budanov, former chief of the Main Directorate of Intelligence — have exuded a degree of confidence and are ostensibly indicative of a security-oriented posture maintained by the Ukrainian state. Taken together, these developments suggest that Ukraine is far from capitulation.
The talks thus far reflect a fundamental contradiction between the two sides on questions of territorial realities and security guarantees.
Following the failed talks in Istanbul between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in the spring of 2022, negotiations resumed last year, initiated by a landmark phone call between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in February. The broader objective was to restore diplomatic relations between Washington and Moscow as a precursor to negotiations on ending the war in Ukraine. These talks confirmed the shift in US policy toward Russia, with Washington adopting a conciliatory stance on Moscow’s core security interests. This led to a series of negotiations between American and Russian interlocutors, followed by talks between the United States and Ukraine. Direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine resumed in Istanbul in the summer of 2025. After multiple rounds of talks in late 2025, a 28-point peace plan (later reduced to 20) was put forth by the United States and Ukraine, but was rejected by Russia.
The talks thus far reflect a fundamental contradiction between the two sides on questions of territorial realities and security guarantees. Russia’s primary demands include Ukraine's complete withdrawal from Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia, with Ukraine’s withdrawal from the Donbas being a core priority. Ukraine, on the other hand, has refused to sign any agreement without reliable security guarantees. This divergence has contributed to the persistence of hostilities. Although the talks have taken a more pragmatic turn since early this year, the two sides have yet to reach an agreement.
In addition to demanding Ukraine’s withdrawal from the above-mentioned territories and a drastic reduction of its military capabilities, Moscow has called for the removal of Western sanctions. Other demands include pushing for wartime elections in Ukraine, a proposal that tacitly suggests that Russia does not see its relations with Ukraine improving under the current administration. This remains another point of contention for Kyiv. Ukraine has rejected these demands, continuing to call for the restoration of its pre-2014 borders and refusing to sign any peace agreement without a prior ceasefire — a condition that Russia has rejected. In Moscow’s calculus, a ceasefire without addressing what it terms the “root causes” of the conflict would likely collapse, potentially allowing Ukraine to regroup and launch a counteroffensive.
Negotiators are likely to deliberate on strengthening confidence-building measures, including large-scale exchanges of prisoners of war (POWs), halting strikes on urban centres and energy installations, and the gradual easing of sanctions. Such measures would not resolve the structural contradictions at the heart of the war, but they could significantly de-escalate tensions.
As the impetus to bring the war to an end continues to grow, the trust deficit between the two countries remains the main impediment to a lasting settlement. Negotiations conducted amid active hostilities are structurally fragile; without underlying convergence on key terms, any agreement risks proving temporary. In this context, a comprehensive peace appears unlikely in the near future.
Against this backdrop, negotiators are likely to deliberate on strengthening confidence-building measures, including large-scale exchanges of prisoners of war (POWs), halting strikes on urban centres and energy installations, and the gradual easing of sanctions. Such measures would not resolve the structural contradictions at the heart of the war, but they could significantly de-escalate tensions, rebuild a degree of trust, and create the necessary space for substantive negotiations. This, in turn, could allow Russia a reasonable justification for declaring its operation a success while preserving Ukraine’s sovereignty and long-term security.
Rajoli Siddharth Jayaprakash is a Junior Fellow with the Strategic Studies Programme at the Observer Research Foundation.
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Rajoli Siddharth Jayaprakash is a Junior Fellow with the ORF Strategic Studies programme, focusing on Russia’s foreign policy and economy, and India-Russia relations. Siddharth is a ...
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