A fresh diplomatic push has revived hopes of ending the Russia-Ukraine war, but major disagreements over territory and security guarantees still threaten to derail peace efforts.

US President Donald Trump said on social media on Tuesday that negotiations with Russia aimed at ending its invasion of Ukraine have "only a few remaining points of disagreement."

Meetings in Switzerland. Talks in the United Arab Emirates. A possible Ukrainian presidential visit to the United States.

From the front-line city of Pokrovsk in eastern Donetsk, to Zaporizhzhia in the south, there is little doubt that Russia is making advances. But, battlefield monitors suggest the picture is not quite so bleak for Ukraine as Trump and Putin suggest.

Russia claimed on Tuesday that it took control of another settlement in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. A statement by the Russian Defense Ministry claimed that its forces captured the village of Ivanopillya, situated about 7 kilometers (4.3 miles) southeast of the industrial city of Kostiantynivka, a key front in the Donetsk region.

The new 19-point plan has dropped one of the most contentious elements of Trump's peace proposal – a requirement that Ukraine surrender Luhansk and Donetsk, parts of the Donbas, to Russia.

Under the Trump plan, $100 billion in frozen Russian assets would be put toward U.S.-led efforts to rebuild and invest in Ukraine, and the U.S. would then receive 50% of the profits from that investment. (Yes, we are demanding half of the profits generated by a fund to rebuild a ravaged nation.)

Russian authorities must increase the number of people who identify as Russian and speak Russian in the parts of Ukraine incorporated into the country since Moscow's 2022 invasion, according to a document signed by President Vladimir Putin.

Pokrovsk was dubbed a "fortress" settlement in the Donetsk region, key to Ukrainian lines in the east and connected to other cities forming the backbone of Ukraine's defense in the east. Russia kicked off a push to take Pokrovsk in the summer of 2024.

On the morning of November 18, 2025, nearly half a million people in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine awoke to a blackout. Overnight, coordinated drone strikes had crippled the region’s main power plants,