In early June 2026, just as the St Petersburg International Economic Form was underway, Ukraine attacked the city with long-range drones. That attack effectively marked the beginning of a new phase of the war, described in Kyiv government circles as an attempt to force Russia into peace talks.
The two-pronged strategy of drone attacks and open letters, which Ukrainska Pravda covered in detail, consisted of striking Russia's critical infrastructure on the one hand, steadily increasing the range of attacks to 1,000-3,000 km, and offering to begin peace talks at any time on the other.
The general expectation was that in the second half of the summer Ukraine's defence forces would launch a drone blockade of Crimea and Ukraine's south, making the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea completely unusable for Russian shipping. This was supposed to take place in sync with increased sanctions pressure from Ukraine's partners so that in the autumn, after the Russian elections, they could jointly push the Russians to genuinely engage in negotiations.
Back in June, a source in President Zelenskyy's diplomatic team explained the logic behind Ukraine's actions to UP: "Taking together all the military, diplomatic and international factors, a certain window of opportunity for negotiations may open in October or November – sometime before the US elections and after the Russian State Duma elections."
As of early autumn, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have achieved most of their military objectives. In some respects – such as disrupting Russian logistics in the south and targeting the shadow fleet – they have even surpassed expectations.
Yet it cannot be said that Ukraine has moved any closer to achieving its main objective – the start of substantive negotiations. Quite the opposite.
The overall positive momentum began to fade in August. A sharp escalation in Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities in the rear – above all Kyiv, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv – has left Ukraine practically alone in confronting Russia's relentless aerial attacks.
There are several reasons for the stark contrast between what had been planned and the actual outcome. And the infighting over control of the Defence Ministry, the government, the General Staff and the Armed Forces didn't help, giving the Russians a head start in the technology war.
The procession of corruption scandals also took their toll, as did the total ineffectiveness of Ukraine's international partners in terms of ramping up pressure on Moscow.
It was against this backdrop that Presidents Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump held their latest meeting in the US on 22 September.
Could that meeting have given a new impetus to the negotiations and reversed the diplomatic momentum working against Ukraine? What do Ukraine and its partners realistically expect from the autumn window for negotiations? What might Putin theoretically be prepared to agree to, and why? And what should Ukraine be prepared for after its unsuccessful attempts to force the Russians into negotiations this autumn?
Ukrainska Pravda set out to tackle these questions.
Negotiations between two capitals
In August 2026, after months of attempts that never came off, promises, postponements and yet more promises, Donald Trump's special envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff finally arrived in Kyiv. They had just visited Moscow, where they held talks with Vladimir Putin.
That trip can effectively be regarded as the start of the final phase of this year's negotiation process.
This round had begun with the notorious Dmitriev-Witkoff "peace plan" draft at the end of 2025. The negotiations then intensified after Kyrylo Budanov and Davyd Arakhamiia joined the Ukrainian team in early 2026. There were several fairly productive rounds of talks and meetings in various jurisdictions.
Eventually the broad outlines of a potential framework for a deal emerged. People involved in the negotiations jokingly referred to it as "Donnyland" (it is an irony of fate that Donbas should have the same initial syllable as the US president's first name).
The idea was to have a ceasefire along the line of contact, certain restrictions on Ukraine's military capabilities, and most importantly, a kind of "free economic zone" in Donbas, to be administered by the United States.
Exactly where this so-called Donnyland was supposed to be – in the Ukrainian-controlled part of Donbas, proportionally across both Ukrainian-controlled and Russian-occupied territories, or within broader boundaries – was something the leaders themselves were supposed to decide.
But the process ground to a complete halt before a meeting could even take place, largely because the guarantees on offer were too vague and the risks for Ukraine too great.
Despite all this, Trump and his special envoys have continued to repeat the mantra that the war could be swiftly ended – if not within 24 hours, then at least in 2026. But members of Zelenskyy's team have said privately that Kushner and Witkoff's visits to Moscow and Kyiv left them feeling a lot less optimistic, to put it mildly.
"They finally made it to Kyiv, but the problem is that with the messages they brought, they could have saved themselves the journey. They didn't bring us anything new," one member of Zelenskyy's team complained to UP off the record in early September.
"Their entire approach came down to this: before, we used to discuss scenarios for Ukraine's victory, but these people don't even have a strategy for a dignified defeat. All they have to offer boils down to this: give the Russians what they want and then we'll shower you with money. But that doesn't look much like a workable plan," the UP source said, describing the general shift in the situation.
Especially not when you consider that the Russians have identified the weak point in Ukraine's defences: the shortage of interceptors to counter ballistic missiles, and of interceptor drones to down the new jet-powered Shaheds.
So the only issue on which a more or less realistic agreement might be reached this year is the energy ceasefire.
Negotiations between two elections
"Our oil refinery strikes are what really hurt the Russians," a senior member of Zelenskyy's team told UP. "And that's the only thing they're genuinely prepared to talk about right now. An arrangement where we don't hit their oil industry and they don't hit our energy infrastructure is, so far, the only thing that might be put together before winter."
In early September, UP learned that preparations were underway for a trilateral Ukraine-US-Russia meeting at adviser level in one of the Gulf states to explore the idea of an energy ceasefire.
"Trump's envoys came away from Moscow with the impression that the Russians weren't going to enter into any negotiations or make any concessions before their State Duma elections because that would be perceived as weakness in their society. After the elections they won't let up on their attacks either, because they'll need to demonstrate that they're strong and use that to strengthen their position. But they may well be willing to talk about energy," one member of Zelenskyy's inner circle said, sharing their impressions following the US envoys' visit.
The Russian "elections" ended on 20 September. The aforementioned meeting of advisers was supposed to take place sometime afterwards. But once again, Trump intervened.
With his own congressional midterm elections approaching, the US president, true to form, declared his willingness to hold a meeting of advisers almost as if a deal had already been signed.
This forced Ukraine to respond publicly as well, and President Zelenskyy announced Kyiv's official negotiating position: if strikes on energy infrastructure are to stop, the arrangement must cover the entire energy sector. Ukraine cannot be expected to stop striking Russian oil refineries while Russia retains the right to attack Ukraine's electricity infrastructure, for example, on the pretext that it "serves the defence industry".
Kyiv's position is clear: any energy ceasefire must be comprehensive and unconditional.
It was against this backdrop that Zelenskyy and Trump met in the US on 22 September on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
They had actually spoken by phone a few days earlier. That conversation, however, was mostly about diesel prices, which had surged in the US. For some reason Trump chose to blame the price fluctuations not on his failed campaign in Iran, but on Ukraine and its strikes on Russian oil refineries.
The face-to-face meeting on 22 September produced no breakthrough, nor even any tangible practical results. That much was evident from the presidents' brief joint press conference before the talks, Zelenskyy's briefing afterwards, and UP sources in the Ukrainian delegation.
The only achievement was that the Americans stopped saying no to requests to sell Ukraine Patriot missiles and grant licences to manufacture them in Ukraine – although they didn't give a definitive yes either.
Even on long-term issues such as licensing missile production in Ukraine – a process that would take years – Trump continues to avoid giving specific answers.
And this is despite the fact that ahead of the midterms, he badly needs to demonstrate at least some semblance of pressure on Moscow. Ultimately, Moscow's semblance of engaging in negotiations may be only an act to support Trump (whom it views favourably) ahead of the congressional elections.
The US administration hopes to make gains on the Russia front through the signing of the Graham Act, which provides for "bone-crushing sanctions" against Russia. But will Trump be willing to impose such sanctions on members of the Russian elite with whom, it turns out, his family has close personal ties? His meeting with Zelenskyy did not yield an answer to that question.
Perhaps an answer will emerge from talks between the US president and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Zelenskyy has at least asked Trump to test Xi's willingness to put pressure on Moscow.
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Following Zelenskyy and Trump's talks in the US, one conclusion can now be drawn: the campaign Ukraine launched at the start of the summer to force Russia towards peace has not achieved its intended result.
This is largely because Ukraine has been unable to secure a united front among all its partners on sanctions, or to persuade them to become genuinely engaged in addressing the problem of Russian aggression.
Ukraine's military actions aimed at seizing the initiative in the south and Crimea did work. Moreover, the combined pressure on the enemy enabled Ukraine's defence forces to conduct successful and effective counteroffensive operations in the south, near Kupiansk, and even in the area with the highest concentration of Russian forces – around Lyman in Donbas.
This proved once again that while Putin may claim to have captured Kupiansk or Sviatohirsk, saying so does not make it true on the ground. On the battlefield, Ukraine remains capable of defending itself effectively and even destroying elite Russian units such as Rubicon.
Ukraine's biggest problem may prove to be the disarray in its domestic politics.
This has been fuelled by a stream of major corruption revelations involving people close to Zelenskyy. It's also been compounded by months of instability at the Defence Ministry following Mykhailo Fedorov's dismissal and the departure of his team, which had been responsible for the aggressive offensive component of Ukraine's strategy.
The new leaders at the helm of the Defence Ministry, General Staff and Armed Forces have generally received positive assessments, but they need precious time to establish control over their respective agencies. Issues such as the still-unsigned contracts for the procurement of Patriot missiles are perhaps the clearest illustration of this.
As a result, some of Ukraine's military and media momentum has been lost, while Russia has launched a new wave of massive ballistic missile and drone attacks against the capital and western oblasts.
The overall level of frustration in Ukrainian society means the government has to deliver a clear and rapid course of action. With the budget stretched to breaking point and some allies going so far as to bargain over sanctions against Russian oligarchs, Ukraine faces serious risks unless it can restore its internal resilience.
We have to get back to the "spirit of 2022", when it wasn't just the president or a single political force fighting for Ukraine's survival, but the entire nation. Otherwise, our chances of holding out until the next window of opportunity opens for talks will diminish with every passing day.
Roman Romaniuk, Ukrainska Pravda
Translated by Myroslava Zavadska
Edited by Teresa Pearce