Although the eyes of the world are on the Middle East, the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, deepening into the . And those from do not stop accumulating bad news: to the fact that Europe grants a loan of 90,000 million, which is more than necessary and vital, is now added to the pressure it receives from the United States to give a cut to its territorial sovereignty in favor of the occupier and the redoubled barrages from Moscow, increasingly aimed at civilian targets, according to international law.
As published this morning by the newspaper the administration is pressuring kyiv to cede the part of the eastern region still controlled by the Ukrainian military, offering American security guarantees if Ukraine withdraws. The Ukrainian president himself already feared it, in an interview with .
Washington’s position coincides with Russia’s demand that Ukraine hand over an area of approximately 80 by 65 kilometers in the Donetsk region, part of Donbas, as a condition for ending the war. Ukraine has repeatedly refused to do so, arguing that giving up this heavily fortified area would give Russia a base for future attacks that would threaten not only Ukraine, but also Europe.
He has done so since the contacts began, at the request of the United States, meetings that have not borne fruit for now beyond occasional prisoner exchanges and that are currently paralyzed because the White House special envoys are focused on something else, that is, Iran.
Simply handing over the territory would allow us to avoid the enormous costs that would entail trying to take it militarily. Ukraine claims such an offensive would take the Russian military years and cause hundreds of thousands of casualties.
What kyiv revealed revealed the deep distance that still exists between the two parties in the peace talks. Ukraine has repeatedly stated that it cannot accept a peace agreement without first signing security guarantees with its Western partners. Otherwise, it would be vulnerable to another Russian invasion, argue Ukrainian officials, who recall the expansionist desire of Putin’s call.
“The Americans are ready to formalize these guarantees at the highest level once Ukraine is ready to withdraw from Donbas,” Zelensky told Reuters, making clear the weight of this concession. “President Trump, unfortunately, in my opinion, continues to opt for a strategy of pressure on Ukraine,” he said.
He added that retaining the part of Donbas that kyiv still controls would help ensure Ukraine’s future security. “I would very much like the American side to understand that the eastern part of our country is part of our security guarantees,” he concluded.
“I would very much like the American side to understand that the eastern part of our country is part of our security guarantees”
More broadly, Zelensky said Ukraine is seeking clarity on how its partners would fund its defense after the fighting ends and how these countries would help protect Ukraine if Russia attacked again.
“Bad feeling”
The Ukrainian president is giving several interviews to international media these days, in an attempt to keep attention on the war in Ukraine. The tour he has made, visiting European rulers, abounds in the same thing. Last week, he declared that he had a “very bad feeling” about how the war against Iran would affect the war in Ukraine itself.
Furthermore, he insists that Russia’s continued attacks on Ukraine show that President Putin is “not interested” in peace. For example, it details that the Kremlin intended to prolong the talks until the Trump Administration lost interest in them, got into a hurry and chose to give in to Russia or allow the invasion to continue, both solutions that please the Federation. The possibility, he warns, is real.
Talks between Russia, Ukraine and the US have been suspended since the war in Iran began late last month. Zelensky’s statements to Reuters came after a round of talks held over the weekend in Miami (USA); between Ukrainian negotiators and , Trump’s special envoy for peace negotiations, and , the magnate’s son-in-law.
The status of Donbas, in particular, has long been one of the most complex issues in any peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. Already in 2022, when full-scale war began, Putin demanded that Ukraine recognize parts of the region as separatist states ruled by pro-Russian groups. At the time, these demands, along with calls for Ukraine to be recognized as Russian territory and abandon any aspirations to join NATO, were considered unacceptable in kyiv.
In polls, a growing number of Ukrainians now recognize the possibility that Ukraine will lose the region, although the military has rejected any suggestion of withdrawal.
Ukraine, at this point, has offered a ceasefire along the current front line in Donbas. This year, negotiators explored a possible Washington-backed compromise that would involve creating a demilitarized zone in the region.
In a social media post Thursday, Zelensky claimed that Russia was trying to convince Trump that Moscow’s forces would end up taking Donbas anyway, so Ukraine should give it up now. But in reality, he says, Russia understands “how long it would take them to capture this territory, with losses of 28, 30, even 35,000 soldiers a month.” “And it is still not certain that they will be able to take it,” he added.
Ukrainian military experts say it would be extremely dangerous to leave the territory. “There are no peace talks; there is an attempt to force Ukraine to capitulate,” Mykhailo Samus, director of the New Geopolitical Research Network, an independent organization based in kyiv, told the NOW.
“There are no peace talks; there is an attempt to force Ukraine’s capitulation”
A member of the 422nd Unmanned Systems Regiment walks next to a drone at a training field, in the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, March 23, 2026. REUTERS/Stringer
The spring offensive
According to the Ukrainian commander-in-chief’s office, Russia has intensified its offensive operations in the area, although Ukrainian forces do not appear to be at immediate risk of collapse on the front. Russian forces seek to make civilian life unsustainable for the approximately 190,000 inhabitants of the Ukrainian-controlled zone.
On Monday, Russia attacked a dam with two guided aerial bombs, and water rationing plans will be introduced in the region.
It’s not just kyiv that says it. The UN Deputy Secretary General for Human Rights, tonight, denounced an increase in civilian deaths in the first two months of 2026 in this war, especially of older people, which almost doubles the rate recorded in 2025. “The danger only increases,” she noted, citing, specifically, drone attacks.
“During the first two months of this year, 60% of all civilian casualties were in frontline regions and almost half of those killed were elderly,” said Al Nashif from Geneva, where he warned that the casualty rate in January and February represents almost double that recorded in 2025, reports . United Nations data shows that in 2025, at least 580 civilians were killed and 3,000 injured in such attacks. But in the first two months of this year alone, 107 were killed and 430 wounded.
A man and a woman observe a residential building destroyed by a Russian bombing, on March 23, 2026, in Druzhkivka, Ukraine.
Likewise, the UN has warned that the main cause of death and injuries were “short-range drone attacks”, specifically 95% of the total and both in areas controlled by the Ukrainian Government and those occupied by Russia.
The Deputy Secretary for Human Rights has alarmed the attending representatives of the situation in the front line areas, where drones and “land mines on the roads (…) make evacuation extremely difficult and dangerous, leaving many people trapped near the front line.”
On the other hand, Al Nashif, who has called on Ukraine “to protect those from torture and ill-treatment”, has also denounced that “more than 96% of Ukrainian prisoners of war” interviewed by the Human Rights Office “claimed to have been subjected to torture and ill-treatment during their captivity”, for which he has urged Russia to “stop this war”, as well as “extrajudicial executions, torture, ill-treatment and other violations against prisoners of war and civilian detainees”.
“There is a deliberate strategy by Russia to terrorize civilians, suppress dissent, and punish those who refuse to leave their homes or comply with Russia’s illegal policies.”
Following the deputy secretary’s statements, the permanent representative of Ukraine to the UN in Geneva, Yevhenii Tsymbaliuk, has denounced that the uprooting of thousands of civilians in the regions occupied by Russian forces of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Crimea constitutes “a deliberate strategy by Russia to terrorize civilians, suppress dissent and punish those who refuse to leave their homes or comply with Russia’s illegal policies.”
Dismissing the UN Deputy Secretary General’s update on the war, the Russian delegation has demanded that she “stop supporting the kyiv regime”, alleging a “war against dissidents, bloggers, journalists, enemies of Zelensky.”
