Ukraine Wants Progress on Peace Negotiations Before Winter, Zelenskyy Says

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he wants to press on with peace negotiations before winter sets in to take advantage of Kyiv’s strategic gains.

Zelenskyy said in an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation,” recorded on May 29 and aired two days later, that Russia began to lose the battlefield initiative in December 2025.

“They couldn’t occupy territories more during one month than they lose during the same month,” the Ukrainian president told “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan.

“So now we have this period of time before the winter. … We have, before the winter, we need to find a way, [a] diplomatic way, to sit and to speak.

“But it depends [on] the pressure on Putin, the pressure in his society, and I think that is increasing, the pressure by sanctions—not to lift them, to put more. It’s good, it’s [a] diplomatic way.”

Zelenskyy’s comments follow those of a senior Ukrainian military commander, who said that Kyiv has a six-month window to seize the battlefield initiative from Russia and strengthen its hand in peace negotiations.

Brig. Gen. Andriy Biletsky, who commands Ukraine’s respected Third Army Corps, told Reuters on May 27 that he believes that Russia’s forces are exhausted and can no longer make any breakthroughs.

He said that if Ukraine can maintain momentum for the next few months, it can gain the initiative on the frontline of the battle and prevent Russia from taking the last part of the Donetsk oblast that Russia doesn’t yet occupy.

“I believe the next six to nine months are a turning point,” Biletsky said. “More precisely, ​I think the next six are the most critical.”

War Shifting in Ukraine’s Favor

This past week, the Institute for the Study of War stated that its analysis of Russia’s battlefield performance shows that “the character of the war is shifting in favor of Ukrainian forces, at least for now” and that the war is not in a stalemate.

The think tank stated in its report, published on May 25, that Russia’s rate of advancement is “plummeting,” while Ukraine is “starting to regain more ground than it is losing for the first time since 2023.”

The report also states that Ukraine has regained an overall drone advantage and has been “conducting a coherent campaign to suppress and destroy Russian air defenses since late 2025, in order to shape the battlefield as part of more sophisticated campaign planning.”

“Ukraine’s success in blunting Russian advances and reversing Russian gains in some sectors of the line, in tandem with Ukraine’s limited reintroduction of elements of tactical mechanized maneuver, may nevertheless mark the beginning of a new phase of the war,” the report reads.

According to a December 2025 war report card from Russia Matters, a project by Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Russian forces control about 20 percent of Ukraine, which includes Crimea and parts of the Donbas that Russia had seized before the full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.

$105 Billion EU Loan

On May 28, the Ukrainian parliament ratified a 90 billion euro ($105 billion) loan agreement with the European Union, which will allow Kyiv to boost defense spending. The EU and Ukraine agreed that half will be paid this year and the other half in 2027.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said finalizing the loan would mean that the first disbursement would be made in June. The Ukrainian government expects to receive 3.2 billion euros ($3.7 billion).

The loan will ease pressure on the Ukrainian state budget, with 13.2 billion euros ($15.4 billion) of this year’s allocation going to cover the budget gap. The remaining 31.8 billion euros ($37 billion) will go toward defense, meaning that Ukraine’s overall defense budget will rise to a record 100 billion euros ($116.4 billion).

After the vote, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked parliamentarians, writing on X that the funds “will strengthen our resilience and help protect the lives of our people, rebuild what has been destroyed by Russian strikes, and defend our independence.”

He also extended his gratitude to EU partners “for their readiness to stand with Ukraine and provide meaningful support for our defense, our diplomacy, and our recovery.”

The Russia–Ukraine war is now in its fifth year.

Reuters contributed to this report.