New research has suggest Russia is rapidly making gains on the front line in Ukraine as talks to end the war continue to stall.
The Institute for the Study of War, a US think tank said Vladimir Putin's troops are now gaining land at one of fastest rates since the war began almost four years ago.
According to DeepState, a respected Ukraine-based battlefield map, the Kremlin’s army seized 200 square miles of territory in November, up from 100 square miles the previous month.
The Russian President has said his troops will seize the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine either by force or through negotiation.
A proposal to end the war, drawn up by President Donald Trump’s administration, would have involved Ukraine handing over vast tracts of land.
Kyiv and Europe have rejected the proposals.
This is likely to help persuade President Trump that any future peace talks should be set on the Kremlin's terms, and that sending weapons and aid to Kyiv is a waste.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said he had a "long and substantive phone call" with Steve Witkoff, the White House’s Russia envoy, and Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law who is assisting the negotiations.
Firefighters work at the site of a Russian drone and missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the Poltava region
|HANDOUT VIA REUTERS
Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 after eight years of fighting between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops in the Donbas, which is made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
The White House's Special Envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg, who is due to step down in January, told the Reagan National Defense Forum efforts to resolve the conflict were in "the last 10 metres" which he said was always the hardest.
The two main outstanding issues, Kellogg said, were on territory, primarily the future of the Donbas, and the future of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, which is under Russian control.
Mr Kellogg said: "If we get those two issues settled, I think the rest of the things will work out fairly well...We're almost there."
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS FROM THE FRONTLINE IN UKRAINE
President Zelensky is set to visit London tomorrow
|REUTERS
Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 after eight years of fighting between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops in the Donbas, which is made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Russia currently controls 19.2 per cent of Ukraine, including Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.
The Kremlin also controls all of Luhansk, more than 80 per cent of Donetsk, about 75 per cent of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, and slivers of the Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions.
Mr Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general who served in Vietnam, Panama and Iraq, said the scale of the death and injuries caused by the Ukraine war was "horrific" and unprecedented in terms of a regional war.
President Zelensky with Special Envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg
|REUTERS
Mr Zelensky is set to visit Downing Street tomorrow, Monday, as Sir Keir Starmer hosts the latest round of emergency talks alongside French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
President Macron said: "Ukraine can count on our unwavering support. That is the whole point of the efforts we have undertaken as part of the Coalition of the Willing."
"We will continue these efforts alongside the Americans to provide Ukraine with security guarantees, without which there can be no robust and lasting peace.
"For what is at stake in Ukraine is also the security of Europe as a whole."
President Vladimir Putin is currently on a state visit to India
|REUTERS
After President Vladimir Putin held four hours of Kremlin talks last week with Mr Witkoff, and Mr Kushner, Putin's top foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, said "territorial problems" were discussed.
This most likely refers to the Russian claims to the whole of Donbas, though Ukraine is still in control of at least 5,000 square km of the area.
Almost all countries recognise the Donbas as part of Ukraine.