Highlights

Properly addressing the security and territorial issues between Russia and Ukraine would not only be the most critical part in leading to a final resolution to the Ukraine crisis, but also would greatly contribute to the process of building a sustainably secure European security framework.

Over the past few months, a lot of discussions concerning the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war have been focusing on the terms for settling the crisis. Agreeing on the terms related to security and territorial issues would be the key toward bringing the Ukraine crisis to an end at an earlier date.

Data as of August 12, 2025

Source: The Institute for the Study of War with AEI’s Critical Threats Project

Graphic: Rachel Wilson, CNN. Cited from CNN.

Ukraine and its backers prefer to reach a ceasefire with Russia in the first place before negotiating any settlement framework, while the Russian side indicated that an unconditional ceasefire at the moment is unacceptable for Russia.

In order to get Russia to agree to a ceasefire, in late July, the U.S. government claimed to impose new sanctions on Russia as well as secondary sanctions on countries importing Russian energy, if, within 50 days, Russia and Ukraine fail to make any progress toward reaching a peace deal.

Shortly, the Trump government cut the 50-day period to a 10-day duration, as the U.S. President believed that he already knew the answer, so that there was no need to wait that long anymore.

Then, before the expiring date of the 10-day limit, the U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff conducted a trip to Moscow in early August to have further consultation with the Russian side on finding a solution to end the Ukraine conflict. The meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Steve Witkoff lasted about three hours, and no much detail regarding the meeting was revealed, yet both the U.S. and Russian officials spoke positively of the outcome of the meeting.

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Note: this article has been republished by the Strategic Thinking magazine with a slightly adjusted version.