President-elect Donald Trump has promised to broker a peace deal in Ukraine, but as he prepares to take office, peace appears as elusive as ever.

Moscow and Kiev are seeking battlefield victories to strengthen their negotiating position ahead of any expected talks to end the three-year war.

Last year, Russian forces slowly but steadily broke through Ukrainian defenses, seeking full control of four eastern and southern regions that Moscow illegally annexed early in the war but never fully captured. It has also launched waves of missiles and drones in an attempt to cripple Ukraine's energy grid and other critical infrastructure.

In turn, Ukraine sought to secure and expand its invasion of Russia's Kursk region. Kiev's missiles and drones have also struck Russian oil facilities and other key targets important to Moscow's war machine.

Both sides have taken a tough negotiating stance, leaving little room for compromise.

Trump vowed during the campaign to resolve the war within 24 hours, but changed that time frame earlier this month, saying he hoped a negotiated peace could be reached within six months. Keith Kellogg, his nominee for envoy to Ukraine, said a deal could be reached within 100 days.

Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that Moscow was ready to negotiate but stressed that any peace deal should respect "reality on the ground," a not-so-subtle way of saying that Russia's Land income.

He stressed in June that Ukraine must also abandon NATO membership and fully withdraw its troops from Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson (regions annexed by Russia in September 2022), but Ukraine and the West The state rejected these demands. Moscow also wants the West to lift sanctions that have restricted Moscow's access to global markets and dealt a heavy blow to the Russian economy.

Huge military spending has boosted Russia's economic output, which grew by nearly 4% last year, but the ruble's depreciation and labor shortages have fueled high inflation and increasingly undermined economic stability. Last week, President Joe Biden deepened Moscow's pain by widening sanctions on Russia's vital energy sector, including its shadow fleet that it uses to circumvent previous restrictions.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's initial "peace package" called for a full withdrawal of Russian troops from all occupied territories, but as Moscow continued to make progress, he later softened his position and no longer made withdrawal a condition of negotiations. Zelensky faces reluctance from some allies to allow Kyiv to join NATO quickly, but he has insisted on strong security guarantees from the United States and other Western partners as a key element of any future peace deal.

Zelensky stressed the need for a comprehensive agreement rather than a temporary cessation of hostilities that would only allow Russia to replenish its nuclear arsenal. He pushed for the deployment of Western troops to Ukraine as peacekeepers.

Putin also rejected a temporary truce, noting that Russian forces were launching an offensive and that any interruption in the fighting would allow Ukraine to receive reinforcements and supplies.

"The Russians see that Trump is going to push for some kind of solution or some solution, and they want to extract as much profit as they can," said Kurt Wall, who served as Trump's special representative for Ukraine during his first term. K expressed.

Russia controls about a fifth of Ukraine, including the Crimean peninsula, which was illegally annexed in 2014. Russia has held the battlefield initiative for much of 2024, conducting offensives along multiple segments of a frontline of more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles). Moscow's autumn harvest was the largest since the early stages of the invasion.

Ukraine faces a severe manpower shortage as it struggles to mobilize enough new troops to make up for its losses and increasing desertions.

Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment, noted that "stabilizing the front lines is critical to buying time and forcing Moscow to reevaluate." He noted that Ukraine's mobilization rate has dropped significantly since the summer and "staffing levels have continued to decline. , especially the infantry units that stick to the front line."

Moscow-based military analyst Sergei Poletayev noted that while Russia lacks the resources to achieve a major breakthrough, it has perfected a strategy of small-scale, slow advances in multiple areas.

“Moscow is betting on the depletion of the Ukrainian armed forces and the collapse of the Ukrainian state,” Poletaev wrote recently.

Kiev sought to change its fortunes by invading Russia's Kursk region in August, aiming to disperse Moscow's power in eastern Ukraine and strengthen its influence in negotiations. Russia was initially caught off guard and then stepped up efforts to expel Ukrainian troops. The United States, Ukraine and South Korea say North Korea has sent 10,000 to 12,000 troops to Russia to fight in the Kursk region.

Kellogg, the new administration’s nominee for special envoy to Ukraine, dismissed European concerns that Trump might reduce support for Kyiv, saying: “He’s not trying to give anything to Putin or the Russians, he’s actually trying to save Ukraine and save their sovereignty. "

Volcker predicted that Trump would press Putin to end hostilities and warned him that he would significantly increase pressure on Moscow if the Russian leader did not heed that demand.

Volcker said that if Putin refused to stop the fighting, Trump would "open the taps" and allow Ukraine to borrow money and buy whatever military equipment it wants while tightening sanctions on Russia's oil and gas industry.

"I think the purpose of these things is to get Putin to conclude, 'OK, it's time to stop,'" Volcker said.

Other observers warn that Putin is unlikely to compromise on his war goals, especially as Russian forces gain the upper hand in Ukraine and the Russian economy has so far been unaffected by ongoing Western sanctions.

While seeking to consolidate his gains and win Western assurances that Ukraine will never be invited to join NATO, Putin also wants Kyiv to embrace a set of language, education and cultural policies that ensure it is friendly to Moscow.

"Putin has tied his war to achieving this goal and is unlikely to retreat," Tatyana Stanovaya of the Carnegie Center for Russia and Eurasia wrote in a commentary. "Instead, he may Increase the intensity.”

She added that Russia's demand for Ukraine's "demilitarization" not only meant significant reductions in its armed forces, but also sought assurances from the West that it would not rearm its allies.

"Moscow views any military support for Ukraine as inherently hostile," she said.

Putin is unlikely to roll back the annexation of four Ukrainian regions, which is enshrined in the Russian constitution.

"Moscow believes that it is necessary for Ukraine to recognize Russia's new borders in order to exclude the basis for military retaliation," political analyst Vladimir Frolov said in a commentary.

Many analysts in Moscow are skeptical about the prospects of a peace deal, pointing to wide differences in the positions of the two sides. Some say the failure of negotiations could bring Russia and the United States to the brink of direct conflict if Trump decides to step up military support for Ukraine.

"Westerners tend to think that Putin will get scared and agree to a ceasefire," Moscow analyst Poletayev wrote. "Quite the opposite. Putin may choose to escalate and retaliate in kind."

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Associated Press writer Danica Kirka in London contributed.