Bloomberg: Russia plans to withdraw from talks if Ukraine does not agree to hand over Donetsk region

Russian officials increasingly believe that there is no point in continuing US-led peace talks with Ukraine if Kyiv is unwilling to cede territory to reach an agreement.

This is reported by Bloomberg, citing sources close to the Kremlin.

The agencyʼs interlocutors see the talks scheduled for next week as crucial to understanding whether the sides can agree on terms to end the war. Russia is likely to walk away from the talks if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky does not make concessions, they said.

Russia is ready to sign a draft memorandum on a peace agreement if Ukraine agrees to withdraw its troops from the Donetsk region, the sources said. This would be followed by a presidential summit between Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky to confirm the agreement, which would lead to the mutual withdrawal of Russian and Ukrainian armies, the source said.

Russia also agrees to monitor a US-led ceasefire, although it opposes foreign troops in Ukraine. In addition, Russia is ready to abandon the demand to limit the size of the Ukrainian army.

The future of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) in Ukraine also remains a subject of negotiations. Russia supports a three-way sharing of electricity generated at the plant between itself, the United States, and Ukraine, while Kyiv favors a 50/50 split with the United States, which would have the right to freely share electricity with Moscow.

Negotiations between Ukraine, Russia and the USA

The first direct trilateral talks between delegations of Ukraine, Russia, and the United States were held in Abu Dhabi on January 23-24. Their main topic was the possible terms of ending the war, but the negotiators did not achieve any concrete results.

The next round of negotiations took place in Abu Dhabi on February 4-5. The parties focused on the mechanisms of the ceasefire and how it would be monitored by the United States. But the delegations were unable to finally agree on the details without political decisions at the highest level. At the same time, they agreed on the first exchange of prisoners between Ukraine and Russia in the last five months — 157 Ukrainians returned home.

After that, Ukraine, Russia, and the United States held peace talks in Geneva on February 17-18. Zelensky said at the time that the military had almost agreed on how to monitor the ceasefire, but there had been no progress on the issues of territories and ZNPP.

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