Speaking after Mr Zelensky’s comments, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said parts of a possible peace deal were close to being agreed with neutral status for Kyiv under “serious consideration”.
“Neutral status in now being seriously discussed along, of course, with security guarantees,” Mr Lavrov told RBC news.
But with several Ukrainian cities continuing to come under attack overnight, including the shelling of a 12-storey residential building in Kyiv, we look at how significant talks have been so far.
Has Ukraine accepted it cannot join Nato?
While addressing military officials from the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force via video link yesterday, Mr Zelensky acknowledged that Ukraine would not become a Nato member.
“Ukraine is not a member of Nato. We understand that. We have heard for years that the doors were open, but we also heard that we could not join. It’s a truth and it must be recognised,” he said.
“I’m glad that our people are understanding it and counting on themselves and our partners who help us.”
Why is this a significant concession?
Ahead of launching his offensive on the nation, Russian President Vladimir Putin had repeatedly demanded that Ukraine did not join Nato.
Russia was strongly opposed to the country’s previous aspirations to join the group as it saw it as a threat to its own borders and sphere of infleunce.
Five Nato countries already border Russia after ex-Soviet states Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania became members.
It is not yet known, however, to what extent Mr Zelensky’s statement yesterday was a formal offer of compromise to Putin 20 days into the invasion.
What has happened in peace talks so far?
Peace talks between Russia and Ukraine started on 28 February, four days after the Russian invasion began, with officials from both nations first meeting at the border with Belarus. Since this Monday, negotiators have been meeting via videolink, with Ukraine pressing for a ceasefire, troops withdrawals and security guarantees.
Cautious optimism seems to be buoying the Ukrainian delegation currently, with negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak saying after yesterday’s meeting that there were “fundamental contradictions” but “certainly room for compromise”.
Why has Zelensky said peace talks are sounding “more realistic”?
In this early hours address today, Mr Zelensky said: “The meetings continue and I am informed the positions during the negotiations already sound more realistic.
“But time is still needed for the decisions to be in the interests of Ukraine.”
Details of how Russia may have scaled back on its position are not known, but alongside its demand that Ukraine formally renounce any intention to join Nato, it has also previously pressed that Ukraine formally recognises the breakaway provinces of Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea.
When could the war end?
Russia has so far struggled to occupy any of Ukraine’s 10 biggest cities, with officials in Kyiv suggesting the Kremlin may be coming to terms with its failure to quickly install a new ‘puppet’ Government and loss of troops.
Oleksiy Arestovich, an adviser to Mr Zelensky, has said the war could be over by May, when he expects Russia to run out of resources.
“I think no later than in May, early May, we should have a peace agreement,” he said in a video published via Ukrainian websites. “Maybe much earlier, we will see – I am talking about the latest possible dates.
“We are at a fork in the road now. There will either be a peace deal struck very quickly, within a week or two, with troop withdrawal and everything, or there will be an attempt to scrape together some, say, Syrians for a round two and, when we grind them too, an agreement by mid-April or late April.”
On Wednesday morning, Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said some formulations for an agreement were “close to agreement” while speaking to Russian broadcaster RBC news.
The Kremlin has said that a neutral Ukraine with its own army along the lines of Austria and Sweden was being looked at as a possible compromise.
“This is a variant that is currently being discussed and which could really be seen a compromise,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by the RIA news agency earlier today.
