Ukraine’s top negotiator has said that Kyiv will never cede territory to Russia as part of a peace deal as long as Volodymyr Zelensky is president.
Speaking to The Atlantic, Andriy Yermak said that “not a single sane person today would sign a document to give up territory” following a week of discussion with US officials over how to end the war.
Yermak has sought to assure Washington that Kyiv is ready for peace and open to negotiation – but made it clear that territory such as the Donbas region is off-limits.
Ukrainian and US delegations are set to meet later this week to discuss security guarantees in a potential peace deal following talks in Geneva, Zelensky said earlier.
His comments come after Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Ukraine must give up territory for a peace deal to be possible, in a repeat of his maximalist demands for a peace deal.
However, he said that a 28-point plan presented by Donald Trump is a “basis for future agreements” while delivering a speech in Kyrgyzstan on Thursday.
Zelensky ‘won’t give up land to Russia’ – Yermak
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will not agree to give up land to Russia, his chief of staff Andriy Yermak told U.S. magazine the Atlantic.
“As long as Zelenskiy is president, no one should count on us giving up territory. He will not sign away territory,” Yermak said in the interview published Thursday.
Yermak issues defiant message to Putin: Zelensky will not sign away territory
“Not a single sane person today would sign a document to give up territory,” Ukraine’s top negotiator told The Atlantic in a defiant assertion of Kyiv’s red lines.
Andriy Yermak, who has spearheaded Kyiv’s diplomacy with the US over the last week, emerged from talks still confident that Zelensky “will not sign away territory”.
“As long as Zelensky is president, no one should count on us giving up territory,” he said.
The comments were published just hours after Vladimir Putin said that Russia was sticking firm to its maximalist demands, and that Ukraine must lay down its weapons and give up territory for a ceasefire to happen.
US and Ukraine delegations to meet this week to discuss peace formula, says Zelensky
Members of the Ukrainian and US delegations are to meet this week to work out a formula discussed at talks in Geneva to bring peace and provide security guarantees for Kyiv, Volodymyr Zelensky has said.
“Our team, together with American representatives, will meet at the end of this week to continue to bring closer the points we have as a result of (talks in) Geneva in a form that will lead us on the path to peace and security guarantees,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address.
“There will be a meeting of delegations. The Ukrainian delegation will be well prepared and focused on meaningful work,” he said.
Watch: Zelensky responds after Putin’s warning over Ukraine territory
Ahead of peace talks, Putin doubles down on his demands for Ukrainian territory
Russia will lay down its arms only if Ukraine’s troops withdraw from territory illegally claimed and captured by his soldiers, Russian president Vladimir Putin said.
In his remarks to reporters during a trip to Kyrgyzstan, the Russian president accused Ukraine of wanting to fight “to the last Ukrainian” – which he said Russia was “in principle” also ready to do.
Putin claimed that Russia has the initiative on the battlefield and that the war would only end when Ukrainian troops withdraw from the Donbas, which is made up of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.
“If they don’t withdraw, we’ll achieve this by force of arms,” he said.
Belgium PM says using frozen Russian assets could derail Ukraine peace deal – report
Belgian prime minister Bart De Wever said the European Union’s plan to use frozen Russian state assets to fund Ukraine could endanger the chances for a potential peace deal to end the nearly four-year war, the Financial Times has reported.
“Hastily moving forward on the proposed reparations loan scheme would have, as a collateral damage, that we as EU are effectively preventing reaching an eventual peace deal,” De Wever said in a letter to European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, which was seen by the FT.
EU leaders tried at a summit last month to agree on a plan to use €140bn ($162bn) in frozen Russian sovereign assets in Europe as a loan for Kyiv, but failed to secure the backing of Belgium, where much of the funds are held.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive body, hopes to address Belgium’s concerns in a draft legal proposal which it will present this week on using the frozen sovereign assets to support Kyiv in 2026 and 2027, EU officials have said.
Analysis: Ukraine has tried to bounce US into a peace deal – but Putin is still in charge
Putin claims Russian army has surrounded Ukraine city dubbed ‘the gateway to Donetsk’
Russian forces have surrounded the embattled Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk and control 70 per cent of it, President Vladimir Putin claimed on Thursday, though Kyiv’s top general insisted Ukrainian defenders were pushing back hard amid fierce fighting in the city centre.
Moscow has sought full control of Pokrovsk – known to Russians by its Soviet-era name, Krasnoarmeysk – since mid-2024, as part of its broader objective to seize the entire Donbas industrial region.
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