Vladimir Putin Is 'Slowly Losing' War With Ukraine: Ed Price

NYU senior fellow Ed Price reacts to comments from President Trump and Norway Prime Minister Jonas Støre as the leaders discuss the war in Ukraine and the status of peace negotiations.

TThe US will demand that Russia accept Ukraine’s right to develop its own, adequately equipped, army and defense industry as part of a peace agreement, according to people familiar with the matter, pushing back on Russia’s insistence that the country largely demilitarize as a condition to end the war.

US envoy Steve Witkoff will travel to Russia to raise the issue with President Vladimir Putin, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations.

It’s a signal that President Donald Trump’s administration is seeking some concessions from the Kremlin, as well as Ukraine, as it tries to end a war that’s now into its fourth year. Critics have thus far viewed the US proposals as tilted toward Russia, including the Trump administration’s insistence that Ukraine give up its aspirations to join the NATO military alliance.

Agreeing to let Kyiv maintain its military, as demanded by Ukraine and its European allies, would mean Putin would have to give up on his announced goal for a “demilitarization” of the country, one of his main stated war aims. The outcome on that issue may depend on Russia’s willingness to let Ukraine independently determine the scope of its future forces.

As part of a draft agreement discussed in the weeks after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, Putin’s government proposed putting strict limits on the future size of Ukraine’s military in a move that critics said would have left it helpless in the face of future threats.

Those proposals would have seen the size of Ukraine’s army reduced by more than half. Its number of tanks, artillery and rocket launchers also would have been slashed.

The Trump administration also wants Moscow to return Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which it seized early in its full-scale invasion of its neighbor in 2022. The facility would then fall under US control to administer energy to both sides, said the people. They added that details of the plans had yet to be completed and could still change.

An administration official said Witkoff’s outreach to Putin is part of Trump’s efforts to make peace, move beyond past failed strategies and end the deadly conflict. Spokespeople for the US National Security Council and the State Department didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Trump said Thursday that he’s “using a lot of pressure on both” sides in the war. He said he thinks Putin “wants to make a deal. We’re going to find out very soon.” Asked what concessions Russia has offered, Trump said, “Stopping the war, stopping taking the whole country — pretty big concession.”

In addition to letting Ukraine maintain its military, the US wants to ensure that it has passage over the Dnieper River and that land occupied by Russia in the Kharkiv region is returned. Putin has demanded recognition of the entirety of the Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Kherson regions, despite having failed to fully occupy them.

Russia has continued to bomb Ukrainian cities even as talks have continued, and as it has insisted that it’s prepared for peace. Overnight, Russia launched the biggest airstrike of the year against Ukraine, targeting Kyiv and killing at least 12 people.

That forced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to cut short a visit to South Africa on Thursday. Before he left, Zelenskiy told reporters that “we can’t talk about red lines without an unconditional ceasefire.”

At a meeting in Paris last week, Trump’s team presented Europe and Ukraine with a proposal to end the war that would also see the US recognize Ukraine’s Crimea region as Russian while freezing most other occupied territories along current battle lines, effectively leaving them under Moscow’s control, Bloomberg News previously reported.

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