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Thanks to President Trump's leadership, the U.S. has successfully brought Russia and Ukraine together to the negotiating table and meaningful progress is now being made to end this terrible conflict.
Given that Russia shows no signs of giving up its maximalist demands of seizing the whole of the Donbas, the likelihood of any real progress towards ending the war is exceptionally low. This is not helped by hardliner Vladimir Medinsky being placed at the helm of Russia's negotiating effort.
Ukraine appreciates the peacemaking efforts of Trump and his team but it's not fair that only Ukraine is expected to make concessions. The notion of giving up the Donbas region is a non-starter as this would never be accepted by the Ukrainian people in a referendum.
The Russian negotiating team are reporting directly to Putin on the latest developments in peace talks. However, it is too early at this stage to offer any public assessments.