December 7: The United States’ outgoing special envoy for Ukraine said a deal to end the nearly four-year-old war was within reach, with only two major issues still unresolved, but the Kremlin insisted Washington must make “radical” revisions to its draft proposals.
U.S. Special Envoy Keith Kellogg said negotiations had entered their final stretch, centred on the future of the Donbas region and the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest. “We’re in the last 10 metres — and that’s always the hardest,” Kellogg told the Reagan National Defense Forum in California. “If we get those two issues settled, I think the rest will work out fairly well. We’re really, really close.”
President Donald Trump, who has sought to cast himself as a “peacemaker,” views a settlement to halt Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War Two as the most challenging foreign-policy goal of his presidency.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 after eight years of fighting between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces in the Donbas, made up of Donetsk and Luhansk. Moscow now controls about 19.2% of Ukraine, including Crimea and most of the Donbas, though Ukraine still holds roughly 5,000 sq km of the area.
Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said after talks in Moscow that the United States would need to make “serious, radical changes” to its proposals on Ukraine, without elaborating. The comments followed four hours of discussions last week between President Vladimir Putin, Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff, and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who Moscow expects to lead drafting of any deal.
Ushakov confirmed that “territorial problems” had been discussed — Russian shorthand for Moscow’s insistence that Donbas be recognised as part of Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that yielding more territory without a referendum would be illegal and would give Moscow a forward base for future attacks.
Zelenskyy said he held a “long and substantive” call on Saturday with Witkoff and Kushner about the negotiations. Kellogg, a retired U.S. lieutenant general, said the human toll of the conflict was “horrific,” estimating over 2 million people had been killed or wounded since the full-scale invasion began. Neither side releases reliable casualty data.
A leaked set of 28 U.S. draft peace proposals last month sparked alarm in Kyiv and European capitals, where officials said the documents appeared to concede to Moscow’s core demands on NATO, territorial control and limits on Ukraine’s armed forces. Efforts to bridge the remaining gaps will continue as Kellogg prepares to step down in January. “We’re almost there,” he said.
