Russia is linking the territorial issue to ending the war, security guarantees and possible formats for those guarantees. Ukraine’s partners at the talks could not go deeply into the territorial issue because they know it is a red line for Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at a meeting with journalists on 27 October.
Territorial issues can be discussed only by the leaders of the states at war, and only at their level. No one else has the authority, he stressed.
“Going back to the ‘28-point plan’, one of the alternative proposals from the American side was demilitarised zones. After that, it was discussed in different ways in various documents. What will happen to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant? What will happen to some territories that the Americans proposed resolving through ‘land swaps’? Then there was the issue of Donbas: there was a proposal to create a buffer zone or a demilitarised zone on both sides of the line of contact. As a compromise, we were ready to talk it through. Also the Kinburn Spit: they proposed making one part demilitarised, which could be under Ukraine’s control. All these issues are territorial issues. They can be set out in different formats, and that happened. We are ready to discuss territorial issues because the Russians constantly want to discuss them and make them part of the agenda. But that requires meetings at the appropriate level — it is not the kind of issue that can supposedly be resolved at the level of drafts, some preliminary conversations or anything like that,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
Context
At talks between Ukraine, the US and Russia held last year and in the winter of 2026, a 28-point plan to end the war was discussed. No consensus was reached on the territorial issue. Russia is demanding that Crimea, the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in full, as well as the occupied parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, be закреплены for it. Ukraine is категорически against withdrawing its army from the free parts of Donbas, but is ready to begin negotiations along the current demarcation lines. As a compromise, the US proposed a demilitarised zone, but it is unclear who would monitor compliance with the agreements and guarantee that Russia would not occupy the territory if Ukraine withdrew its army from there.