As U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff stood at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, explaining the state of the Washington-moderated negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, he projected the same kind of optimism he always has when questioned about the intractable war.
“I think we’ve got it down to one issue,” he said. “We have discussed iterations of that issue and that means it’s solvable.”
But that one issue is what the last four years have been about: Russia’s desire to conquer and control more Ukrainian land.
After Witkoff and the rest of the delegation met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow late Friday, the U.S. delegation headed to Abu Dhabi for trilateral talks with Ukraine and Russia.
The meetings, which are expected to continue into Saturday, are a sign of renewed momentum, but not compromise, given that the Kremlin appears unwilling to give up its maximalist demands, and insists that Kyiv surrender about 5,000 square kilometres of the Donetsk region, an area roughly the size of Prince Edward Island.
Russia has been unable to capture the area during its all-out invasion, which has been grinding on since February 2022.
It wants the territory handed over in peace talks. The region includes the cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, heavily fortified communities which were each home to more than 100,000 people before Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has already ruled out that scenario. But even if Kyiv agreed, territorial concessions wouldn’t be the end of Moscow’s demands.
“The optimism on the American side is based on some tactical manoeuvre by Russians,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, a Russian political analyst and founder of the firm R. Politik.
“From the Russian point of view, this is only a starting point.”
Russia wants all of the Donbas and more
On Friday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that besides the territory in the Donbas, other “nuances” remain on the agenda. He didn’t go into details, but on Jan. 20 during a news conference in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov rattled off some of the country’s other non-negotiables.
He said Moscow will not allow the west to keep arming Ukraine, nor accept anything that keeps what he called the “Nazi regime” in power. The Russian government frequently uses these baseless claims as a way of justifying its war.
Stanovaya says Lavrov’s statement is a reminder that Russia hasn’t abandoned its goal of controlling Ukraine’s political direction.
The focus may be centred on the Donbas at the moment, but she says if and when a deal is eventually reached on it, Russia will put its other demands back on the table.
“They think that if Ukraine withdraws from the Donbas it in turn will shift the situation … and it will be easier for Russia to move forward with their other demands.”
In an effort to find a compromise, and an end to a war that U.S. President Donald Trump had previously boasted he could solve in a day, Washington has floated the idea of creating a free economic zone in the areas of Donetsk that Ukraine still controls. The regions of Donetsk and Luhansk make up the Donbas, which is a key industrial and coal-mining region.
It’s understood that the area would be de-militarized, but there are no other details on how the zone would work, and what guarantees would be in place to prevent Russia from launching another offensive.
Growing number of dead
On Friday, Russia’s defence ministry claimed that it seized the village of Symynivka in Ukraine’s northern Kharkiv region. If true, this would be the latest incremental battlefield gain that has come at an enormous cost.
In Davos, Trump said that nearly 31,000 soldiers died in the war last month, but didn’t specify where that information came from, and how many of them were from Russia or Ukraine.
Neither side has commented recently on the growing number of dead, but last week the U.K. Ministry of Defence stated that in 2025 Russia likely sustained more than 400,000 casualties, which also includes the injured.
It is not clear how many troops Ukraine has lost.
“I think Putin is in this to the death,” said Robert Wilkie, who served as veterans affairs secretary in Trump’s first administration, during an interview on BBC Radio Friday morning.
“I think the only thing that stops him is a totally massive defeat on the battlefield.”
Wilkie said that Keith Kellogg, who recently left his post as U.S envoy to Ukraine, had voiced his frustration that people weren’t taking Putin at his word.
By that, Wilkie meant that Putin has for decades talked about how he wants to “subsume” or basically absorb Ukraine.
He said he doesn’t share Witkoff’s optimism that a deal is close, and neither do Russian or Ukrainian officials.
Zelenskyy said the meeting in Abu Dhabi, which he called the first trilateral discussion between all three parties, was a “step forward.”
“God willing, [the discussion] may take various forms before the war ends,” he said to journalists.
Zelenskyy said documents related to security guarantees for Ukraine have been drafted and are ready to be signed by Kyiv and Washington.
He had hoped to be able to sign them in Davos, but that didn’t happen.
“I am waiting for President Trump to name the date and place,” he said in response to a question from journalists.
