US President Donald Trump’s outgoing Ukraine envoy said a peace deal to end the war is now very close. However, negotiations are still stuck on two key issues. These are the future of Ukraine’s Donbas region and the status of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

Keith Kellogg, the US Special Envoy for Ukraine, spoke at the Reagan National Defence Forum. He explained that the process has now entered what he called “the last 10 metres”, which is also the most difficult phase. He added that once the two unresolved matters are addressed, the rest of the agreement should move ahead smoothly.

“If we get those two issues settled, I think the rest of the things will work out fairly well,” Kellogg said on Saturday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California. “We’re almost there.”

“We’re really, really close,” said Kellogg.

Background of the conflict

Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Before that, fighting had already been going on for years between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region. This area includes the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Since then, the war has become the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War Two. It has also pushed relations between Russia and the West to levels not seen since the Cold War.

Human cost rises sharply

Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general who served in Vietnam, Panama, and Iraq, described the scale of death and destruction as “horrific”. He said the Ukraine war is unprecedented for a regional conflict.

According to him, Russia and Ukraine together have suffered more than 2 million casualties, including both the dead and the wounded, since the fighting began. However, neither side gives clear or reliable figures.

Moscow claims that Western and Ukrainian numbers exaggerate Russian losses. Meanwhile, Kyiv accuses Russia of inflating Ukrainian casualty figures.

Territory under Russian control

At present, Russia controls around 19.2% of Ukraine’s territory. This includes Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. It also controls all of Luhansk and more than 80% of Donetsk. In addition, Russia holds about 75% of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. Smaller parts of the Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv, and Dnipropetrovsk regions are also under Russian occupation.

Leaked proposals raise concern

Last month, a leaked set of 28 US draft peace proposals caused alarm in Ukraine and across Europe. Officials said the proposals seemed to accept Moscow’s main demands. These included blocking Ukraine from joining NATO, accepting Russian control over about one-fifth of Ukrainian territory, and placing limits on Ukraine’s military strength.

According to the Kremlin, these proposals now contain 27 points and have been divided into four different parts. However, the full details have not been made public.

Under the initial US plan, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, currently in cold shutdown, would restart under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The electricity generated would be shared equally between Russia and Ukraine.

Trump’s team engages with Kyiv

On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he had a long and “substantive” phone call with Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin said on Friday that it expects Kushner to play the main role in working on the draft of a possible peace deal.