“I think we have a lot of it already discussed very much by both sides, Ukraine and Russia. We’re already talking about that, dividing up certain assets.”

‘Very good chance’ of ending Ukraine war

“I’ll be speaking to President Putin on Tuesday.”

Asked on ABC whether the US would accept a peace deal in which Russia was allowed to keep stretches of eastern Ukraine that it has seized, Waltz replied, “Are we going to drive every Russian off of every inch of Ukrainian soil?” He added that the negotiations had to be grounded in “reality.”

However, Zelenskyy has consistently said that the sovereignty of his country is not negotiable and that Russia must surrender the territory it has seized. Russia seized the Crimea peninsula in 2014 and now controls most of four eastern Ukrainian regions since it invaded the country in 2022.

Russia demans ‘ironclad’ guarantees

Putin has said his military incursion into Ukraine was because NATO’s creeping expansion threatened Russia’s security. He has demanded that Ukraine drop its NATO ambitions, that Russia keeps control of all Ukrainian territory seized, and that the size of the Ukrainian army be limited. He also wants Western sanctions eased and a presidential election in Ukraine, which Kyiv says is premature while martial law is in force.

Russia rules out peacekeepers in Ukraine

Britain and France both have said that they are willing to send a peacekeeping force to monitor any ceasefire in Ukraine.

French President Emmanuel Macron said in remarks published on Sunday that the stationing of peacekeeping troops in Ukraine is a question for Kyiv to decide and not Moscow.