Russia has told Ukrainian negotiators it would accept US security guarantees for Ukraine in a postwar arrangement, according to Kyrylo Budanov, described as President Zelensky's chief of staff. If confirmed, it would mark the most significant movement in ceasefire talks since the full-scale invasion began four years ago.
Budanov disclosed in an interview aired on Ukrainian television.
"At the last talks, the Russian side said, for example, that they would accept the security guarantees offered to Ukraine by the United States."
According to The Sunday Times, the Kremlin has not confirmed the agreement. But the signal itself matters. After months of grinding negotiations in Abu Dhabi and Geneva that produced little visible progress, Russia appears to be shifting its posture on one of the war's central sticking points: who guarantees Ukraine's security when the shooting stops.
The exact shape of US security guarantees remains unclear, but the framework Zelensky outlined last month gives a sense of scale. He described a standing Ukrainian army of 800,000 soldiers, backed by weapons and training from Western allies. The UK-led "coalition of the willing" has pledged a peacekeeping force that includes at least 5,000 soldiers each from the UK and France.
That is not a symbolic tripwire presence. That is a substantial military footprint designed to make a future Russian advance costly enough to deter one. The question of whether American commitment extends to troops on the ground or stops at arms, training, and diplomatic backing will define the weight of any deal.
Russia has not agreed to everything. Budanov noted that Moscow still refuses a summit between Zelensky and Putin, a meeting that US special envoy Steve Witkoff had floated as a possibility. In previous rounds of talks, Russia continued demanding that Ukraine surrender the remaining 20 per cent of eastern Donetsk that Russian forces have failed to capture on the battlefield. Kyiv has repeatedly refused, instead proposing a demilitarised zone where both sides pull back from the front line in exchange for security guarantees.
The pattern is familiar. Russia demands at the negotiating table what it could not take by force. Ukraine counters with arrangements that freeze the conflict without rewarding aggression. The difference now is that Russia appears willing to let America anchor the security architecture, which represents a concession Moscow would not have entertained a year ago.
The timing of Russia's flexibility is not coincidental. The economic walls are closing in.
Russia's energy revenues last year fell by about a fifth compared with 2024. Oil and gas exports dropped 25 per cent, according to Russia's own finance ministry. EU sanctions on fuel imports and coordinated efforts to target Russia's shadow fleet of tankers drove that decline. Earlier this year, Lukoil, one of Russia's two biggest energy companies, began a large overseas asset sale at a significant discount as a direct result of the Trump administration's sanctions.
Western military officials believe at least two-thirds of Ukraine's energy production capacity has been destroyed, damaged, or occupied by Russia since the autumn. Russia is inflicting enormous damage. But it is paying a price it cannot sustain indefinitely. Domestic wartime industries are ramping up, particularly in drones and ballistic missiles, but the revenue base funding that supports production is shrinking.
The sanctions strategy that critics dismissed as insufficient is compressing Russia's ability to wage this war. Moscow's willingness to discuss American security guarantees is a product of that pressure.
Hours before talks resumed on Thursday, Russia launched around 420 drones and almost 40 missiles across six different regions of Ukraine, injuring dozens of people. Negotiations in Switzerland earlier in February were reportedly "very tense" and lasted more than six hours in multiple bilateral and trilateral formats.
Both sides continue their almost nightly exchange of drones and missiles. Russia negotiates while it bombs. That is not a contradiction in Moscow's playbook. It is the playbook. Pressure at the table, pressure on the ground, and wait for the other side's resolve to crack.
What Russia may be discovering is that the resolve is not cracking. This month, the European Parliament approved a new €90 billion loan for Ukraine, with €60 billion earmarked for military procurement. Europe is not retreating. It is writing checks.
The significance of Russia accepting US security guarantees, even in principle, cannot be overstated. For four years, Moscow's negotiating position rested on the premise that Ukraine must exist in a security vacuum, unprotected by any alliance that could deter future Russian action. Accepting American guarantees inverts that premise entirely.
The Kremlin has not confirmed it. The details remain undefined. A Zelensky-Putin summit has not been agreed to. There are a hundred ways this collapses before it becomes a deal.
But Russia said the words. At the table, to Ukraine's face, with American guarantees on the line. That is not how a country talks when it believes time is on its side. That is how a country talks when the math has changed.