As the Ukraine war reaches its 3-year mark, Russia seems to have time on its side as talks start

When Russian troops rolled into Ukraine three years ago, they brought their parade uniforms with them on the push to Kyiv. President Vladimir Putin expected a quick victory.

What Putin dubbed the “special military operation” has turned into Europe’s largest conflict since World War II. Tens of thousands have been killed, entire cities have been reduced to smoldering ruins, millions of Ukrainians became refugees, and Russia was isolated from the West.

Now as senior Russian and U.S. officials are talking again and setting the stage for summit meeting, Putin appears closer than ever to cementing Moscow’s gains of about a fifth of Ukraine’s territory and keeping it out of NATO.

President Donald Trump sharply reversed the three-year U.S. policy of isolating Russia when he called Putin and said afterward they agreed “to work together very closely” to end the war. He said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “will be involved” in negotiations but didn't elaborate.

Trump also expressed understanding of Putin’s key demand on the pivotal issue of Ukraine’s prospective NATO membership that the U.S. and other alliance members previously described as irreversible. ”They’ve been saying that for a long time that Ukraine cannot go into NATO,” Trump said of Russia. “And I’m OK with that.”

Changing fortunes

Putin invaded on Feb. 24, 2022, after demanding that NATO abandon membership for Ukraine and pull back the alliance’s troops on NATO’s eastern flank -- actions rejected by the West.

He claimed his move was necessary to safeguard Russia’s security interests and protect Russian speakers in Ukraine. Kyiv and its allies denounced his move as an unprovoked act of aggression. Ukrainians saw it as Moscow's attempt to destroy their national sovereignty and identity.

Russian troops reached the outskirts of Kyiv early in the invasion but pulled back a month later amid heavy losses and Ukraine's attacks on supply lines. More humiliating setbacks came in September and October 2022, when a Ukrainian counteroffensive forced Russia to pull back from large parts of the Kharkiv region in the northeast and the Kherson region in the south.

Fortunes changed in 2023 when a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the south failed to cut Russia's land route to the Crimea Peninsula, which Moscow illegally annexed from Kyiv in 2014.

Russia seized the combat initiative last year with offensives along the 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front, making slow but persistent gains. In the fall, Russian forces captured the most territory since the opening of the war.

Moscow also pummeled Ukrainian infrastructure with waves of missiles and drones, destroying much of its power generating capacity.

Ukraine struck back in August with an incursion into Russia's Kursk region to try to distract Moscow's forces in the east and gain more leverage in potential peace talks. Ukraine still holds some of those gains, but its limited resources are stretched, making it difficult to defend strongholds in the east.

Ukraine's demands, Trump's view

While Zelenskyy earlier demanded Russia’s full withdrawal from all occupied areas as a precondition for talks, he later acknowledged Kyiv can’t immediately reclaim all its territory. He said Ukraine won't abandon its goal of joining NATO — even though Trump dismissed that as “impractical” — and Zelenskyy emphasized needing reliable Western security guarantees and a robust European peacekeeping force to prevent Russian attacks.

Trump’s call with Putin and ensuing Russia-U.S. talks in Saudi Arabia shattered the Biden administration's “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine” policy. Trump blamed Kyiv for failing to make a deal with Moscow that could have prevented the war, praised Russia's military might and even suggested that Ukraine “may be Russian someday.”

Zelenskyy said Ukraine won’t accept any deal negotiated without Kyiv and insisted that European allies must participate in peace talks. He dismissed a U.S.-proposed draft agreement that would give Washington a large share of Ukraine’s rare earth minerals as too focused on U.S. interests and had no security guarantees for Kyiv.

Europe in the cold

Trump’s approach stunned European allies, whose shock deepened when Vice President JD Vance sharply rebuked them at the Munich security conference over free speech and migration.

While the Trump administration said European allies weren't welcome at the peace talks, it encouraged them to provide security guarantees for Kyiv in what former British ambassador Nigel Gould-Davies called a contradictory approach.

Washington "has signaled that the U.S. alone will negotiate an end to the war but also that Europe alone must pay for and enforce an outcome it has not played a role in deciding,” said Gould-Davies, a senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia with the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Putin's goals

Putin's key goals remain much the same — that Ukraine renounce joining NATO and enforce the use of the Russian language to keep the country in Moscow's orbit — but now wants Kyiv to withdraw its forces from the four regions Moscow has seized but doesn't fully control.

He said a peace agreement could be broadly based on a draft negotiated early in the war that obliged Ukraine to declare neutrality, scale down its military and protect Russian language and culture. Those talks collapsed in April 2022 with no deal.

Putin ruled out a truce, arguing it would benefit Kyiv. But some Kremlin-watchers believe he could accept it if Kyiv agrees to hold elections after a ceasefire.

Trump echoed Putin's line that Zelenskyy, whose term expired last year, needs to face voters, while Kyiv maintains elections are impossible to hold amid a war. Trump escalated that notion Wednesday by posting on social media that Zelenskyy was “a Dictator without Elections.”

Putin could hope an election would weaken Zelenskyy and lead to political instability, said Tatiana Stanovaya, senior fellow at Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.

“In his view, most potential outcomes would be advantageous for Moscow — whether through heightened political infighting, possible protests, or a fragile victory for a new president,” she wrote.

Jack Watling of London's Royal United Services Institute says Ukraine faces “a politically divisive election, economic paralysis due to a lack of foreign direct investment, and coercive threats from Russia to restart the war” after a truce.

Keeping peace

It's unclear who would monitor any potential ceasefire.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said NATO should play no role and that any European troops taking part should not be covered by NATO’s charter obliging allies to aid of any member under attack -– conditions that could dampen European enthusiasm about the mission.

While the U.K. and others signal readiness to deploy troops for such a mission, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said after the U.S.-Russian talks in Saudi Arabia that Moscow won't accept troops from any NATO members in a peacekeeping force.

Some reports suggested Chinese or Brazilian troops as part of a monitoring force, but those countries haven’t signaled any intention of participation.

Many believe Putin is no rush to make a peace deal.

“Negotiations appear desirable but by no means necessary for Russia to achieve its goals in its war against Ukraine,” Stanovaya wrote.

“Virtually any outcome will be a good result for Moscow,” she said, pointing at the erosion of Western unity and reduced Western support for Kyiv amid Moscow’s gains.

“Putin has repeatedly made it clear that he believes Russia can achieve its goals in Ukraine without any U.S.-brokered deal,” Stanovaya noted. “As far as he is concerned, Moscow simply needs to wait until Ukraine falls apart of its own accord, after which the Russian army will crush any remaining resistance among the Ukrainian army.”