That will take some doing. Putin remains uninterested in peace talks as long as Russian troops continue to gain ground in Ukraine’s east, albeit at a slow pace, and while Ukrainian forces hold seized territory in the Kursk region inside Russia, according to John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, and other former officials.

In an interview published on Tuesday, the Ukrainian president said that he would be willing to sit at the negotiating table with his Russian counterpart, if that was the only to "bring peace to the citizens of Ukraine and not lose people.