Here Is Where Ukraine Peace Talks Stand, as a New Round Approaches
A deadly campaign of Russian and Ukrainian airstrikes has escalated since the last U.S.-brokered negotiations stalled in February.
A Russian drone on the road in Kostiantynivka, Ukraine, after being shot down in January
bya Ukrainian police officer with a rifle.
Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
Aurelien Breeden and Cassandra Vinograd
Cassandra Vinograd
reported from Kyiv, Ukraine.
Trump administration envoys arrived on Sunday in Kyiv after a visit to Moscow, part of efforts to restart talks to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.
The diplomatic tour by Steve Witkoff, the administration’s peace envoy, and Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, came more than six months after a previous round of discussions fizzled out, and at a time when Russian and Ukrainian forces are locked in an escalating spiral of airstrikes.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia hinted at the challenges when he welcomed the Americans in Moscow on Saturday, saying that “the situation we have to deal with today is certainly not simple.” The Kremlin’s foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, later told reporters that the meeting lasted over three hours and called the talks “meaningful, constructive, extremely frank and trusting.”
On Sunday, Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner traveled to the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, where President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said he was “ready for the conversation.”
“Ukraine has always been and will always be constructive,” he said in a statement before their arrival. “We are interested in bringing the war to an end.”
Kyrylo Budanov, the Ukrainian delegation’s leader at the previous talks, told The New York Times in a recent interview that negotiations mediated by the Trump administration were expected to begin by late September, days after Russia’s parliamentary election and weeks before U.S. midterm elections.
Kyrylo Budanov, the chief of staff to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, last month in his office in the capital, Kyiv.
Jędrzej Nowicki for The New York Times
It is not clear whether a new round of talks will yield more progress than previous ones. But “negotiations will sooner or later come to something,” Mr. Budanov told The Times. “You cannot fight your whole life.”
He is what to know about peace talks and where they stand.
When was the last round of negotiations?
Russia and Ukraine have been talking at various levels since February 2022, when Russian forces mounted a full-scale invasion of Ukrainian territory. Despite brief cease-fires and occasional prisoner swaps, the two sides have made little headway toward ending the war.
A new flurry of high-level, U.S.-brokered negotiations began shortly after Mr. Trump — who claimed he could end the war in a day — took office in January 2025.
The last round of face-to-face talks was held in February, when Ukrainian and Russian negotiators met in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, and then later in Geneva. But there was no breakthrough in those discussions, and they ground to a halt after the United States and Israel went to war against Iran, a conflict that has consumed the Trump administration’s attention.
Since then, there have been limited contacts between Moscow and Kyiv, but the major issues have remained on hold.
In June, Mr. Zelensky published an open letter to Mr. Putin that offered to resume peace talks, but that also taunted the Russian leader. Mr. Putin, who has shown little serious interest in peace negotiations, recently pledged to pursue the war.
What are the main sticking points?
The last round of negotiations focused on a 20-point peace plan that covered a broad range of issues, including security guarantees that Ukraine seeks to prevent future Russian aggression, and commitments to rebuild the war-ravaged nation.
Image: The aftermath of Russian strikes last month in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. Nicole Tung for The New York Times
The two sides have struggled to reach common ground on several crucial points, including the possible deployment of Western forces in Ukraine, control of territory in the country’s east, and management of a Russian-occupied nuclear power plant.
Russia has demanded that as a condition for ending the war, Ukraine hand over the land it controls in the eastern Donetsk region, a strip of territory about 50 miles long and 40 miles wide that includes dozens of towns and villages. Ukraine has refused to withdraw unilaterally, arguing that ceding land would embolden Russia to attack again, and it has asked for guarantees that would deter Moscow from violating any cease-fire.
Who is involved?
The United States has been the main mediator in talks between Russia and Ukraine.
But European leaders, worried that Mr. Trump will cut them out of any settlement, are trying to take a more active role in ending the war, whose outcome could shape the continent’s security for decades to come. Mr. Trump has also made it clear that he sees Ukraine as a European responsibility.
European diplomats are working on a format for future negotiations to protect European interests that would be led by France, Germany and Britain, European officials said last month.
What is the situation on the ground?
The front, stretching hundreds of miles through eastern Ukraine, has largely been frozen. The terrain has been devastated, and is a killing field dominated by drones, making troop movement a lethal risk.
As a result, Russia and Ukraine have intensified a campaign of airstrikes that have caused death and destruction in cities far from the battlefield. Over the summer, the two sides have launched drones and missiles at energy infrastructure, commercial warehouses and ports that are crucial to grain exports.
Ukrainian strikes in Russia
[items from an image in the original text]
UKRAINE RUSSIA
Moscow
Kyiv
St Petersburg
Voronezh
Rostov-on-Don
Volgograd
Saratov
Kazan
Samara
Ufa
Yekaterinburg
Strikes per location
5
10
25
Sept. 202
Note: As of Aug. 3. Includes Ukrainian drone and missile attacks inside Russia. Strikes within 60 miles of the border are not shown. Source: Armed Conflict Location & Event Data. The New York Times
Russia has pummeled Kyiv with unrelenting daytime attacks of new jet-powered drones, taking advantage of a Ukrainian shortage of air defenses. Ukraine has launched attacks increasingly deep into Russia’s territory, disrupting its economy and isolating Crimea.
Even if negotiations resume this month, conditions for a cease-fire are unlikely to come until spring, Mr. Budanov told The Times. Rudanovssia is expected to attempt to break Ukraine in another strategic winter bombing campaign, the fourth of the war.
More than two million Russian and Ukrainian troops have been killed or wounded in the four years that Russia has been waging war against its neighbor, according to one study.
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Aurelien Breeden is a reporter for The Times in Paris, covering news from France.
A version of this article appears in print on Sept. 6, 2026, Section A, Page 15 of the New York edition with the headline: Where Ukraine Peace Talks Stand.
See more on: Russia-Ukraine War, Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelensky, Jared Kushner, Donald Trump
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Our Coverage of the War in Ukraine
-- Peace Talks: Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, U.S. envoys, visited Russia and Ukraine on a tour aimed at reviving efforts to end the war. Any new talks are likely to happen alongside escalating fighting.
-- Ukraine’s Intelligence Office Struck: Russia attacked the headquarters of Ukraine’s domestic intelligence service in Kyiv, unsuccessfully targeting the agency’s director, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
-- Risk of Russian Sabotage: Europe’s options are limited in responding to an unnerving series of plots and provocations. But the odds of unpredictable consequences are rising.
-- Forging a Path to Peace: Kyrylo Budanov, a decorated soldier and former military spy chief for Ukraine, advocates a negotiated settlement.
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How We [JB -- according to The NY Times employees ] Verify Our Reporting
Our team of visual journalists analyzes satellite images, photographs, videos and radio transmissions to independently confirm troop movements and other details.
We monitor and authenticate reports on social media, corroborating these with eyewitness accounts and interviews. Read more about our reporting efforts.
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