President Vladimir V. Putin’s demand that Ukraine cede the entirety of the Donbas region before Russia stops fighting has highlighted a central question of any negotiations: where to draw a border both sides could accept.

But finding a solution will be fraught. President Volodymyr Zelensky flatly rejected Russia’s proposal, invoking Ukraine’s Constitution, which states that its territory is indivisible and inviolable.

Ukraine has long said that its goal is to restore the borders that were in place before Russia first invaded more than a decade ago. Mr. Putin has shown no willingness to end his pursuit of the Donbas.

Agreeing to a new border will require formalizing a 750-mile front that has violently shifted — sometimes in Ukraine’s favor, other times in Russia’s — for years.

Here is a look at Russia’s advances into Ukrainian territory since it first invaded Crimea in 2014.

2014-2022: Russian invasion of Crimea and the Donbas

Russian forces seized Crimea, a peninsula extending from Ukraine’s southern coast, in 2014. Mr. Putin then annexed the territory, a move that is not recognized internationally, after staging a widely disputed referendum.

Later that year, Russian-backed separatist forces also seized territory in eastern Ukraine. Fierce fighting saw approximately one-third of the Donbas occupied by Russian-backed forces, which declared breakaway republics. Separatists fought against the Ukrainian Army along a largely static front line until the full-scale invasion in 2022.

2022 Russian invasion

Russia made sweeping territorial gains in the first month of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Its forces seized a wide corridor of territory connecting Crimea to the Donbas; launched a massive assault toward Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital; and advanced deeper into eastern Ukraine.

By late March, Russia had reached the high watermark of its territorial control of Ukraine.

2022 Ukrainian counteroffensives

After failing to capture Kyiv, Russia withdrew from northern Ukraine in April 2022 to refocus efforts on the Donbas. Later that year, Ukrainian forces mounted two huge counteroffensives, recapturing most of the Kharkiv region in the east, then pushing Russian forces back across the Dnipro River in the south and regaining control of Kherson city.

By November 2022, Russia was forced out of many areas it had seized earlier in the war.

Today

Since then, Russia has continued to push forward across much of the 750-mile front, although it has failed to make a significant breakthrough.

Recently, Russia has made its largest territorial gains since the summer of 2022, capturing more than 200 square miles in July, according to open-source estimates. Most of its advances have resulted from assaults by small groups of infantry, often moving on foot or by motorbike.

But Russia is still some way from achieving full control of the Donbas, which the Kremlin typically sees as comprising the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine. Moscow now controls almost all of Luhansk, but Ukraine still controls more than 2,500 square miles of territory in Donetsk.

The territory Ukraine holds in Donetsk is among the most heavily fortified areas of the front, and includes two major cities, Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, which have served as a Ukrainian military hub since 2014. A Ukrainian withdrawal from that area would see it lose its defensive positions. At least 200,000 Ukrainians also still live on the land.

US president suggests security guarantees for Ukraine could see Washington provide air support.

United States President Donald Trump has ruled out sending US troops to Ukraine to guarantee its security in the event of an agreement to end Russia’s war in the country.

Asked during an interview with Fox News on Tuesday what assurances he could provide that US troops would not be deployed to defend Ukraine’s borders, Trump said: “You have my assurance, and I am president. I am just trying to stop people from being killed.”

Trump said that European countries were willing to provide troops to bolster Ukraine’s security, but the US could provide support “by air”.

“We’re willing to help them with things, especially, probably if you talk about by air, because there’s nobody that has the kind of stuff we have,” Trump told the Fox & Friends programme.

“I don’t think it’s going to be a problem.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt later reiterated that US troops would not be part of any peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv, but that Washington would assist with “coordination” and “perhaps provide other means of security guarantees”.

Trump’s comments came a day after he hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and top European leaders at the White House in his latest push to bring an end to the three-and-a-half-year-long conflict.

While Zelenskyy and European leaders cast Monday’s meeting as positive and productive, the question of how to ensure Ukraine’s post-war security remains a major sticking point in the negotiations on ending the war.

Although Trump has suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin could agree to the deployment of Western troops in Ukraine to uphold a peace deal, Moscow has repeatedly dismissed the idea.

Russia and Ukraine also appear to be far apart on the issue of territorial concessions and implementing a ceasefire in advance of a comprehensive peace deal.

Trump on Tuesday also elaborated on his plans for a bilateral summit between Putin and Zelenskyy, telling conservative radio host Mark Levin that “they’re in the process of setting it up”.

While Zelenskyy has said he is ready to meet Putin, Moscow has not confirmed that the Russian leader will attend a summit.

On Tuesday, Switzerland’s foreign affairs minister, Ignazio Cassis, told the national broadcaster that his country would be willing to host a Putin-Zelenskyy summit despite the International Criminal Court’s outstanding arrest warrant for the Russian leader.

After attending Monday’s talks at the White House, French President Emmanuel Macron said he was pushing for Geneva to be the location for a summit between the two leaders.

Israel’s prime minister accused his Australian counterpart of having “betrayed Israel” and “abandoned” Australia’s Jewish community, after days of growing strain between the two countries.

Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that history would remember Anthony Albanese “for what he is: a weak politician”.

Australia barred a far-right member of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition from entering the country on Monday, and Israel in turn revoked the visas of Australian representatives to the Palestinian Authority.

Australian Immigration Minister Tony Burke said Netanyahu was “lashing out” in response to Canberra recently announcing it would join the UK, France and Canada in recognising a Palestinian state.

“Strength is not measured by how many people you can blow up or how many people you can leave hungry,” Burke told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Wednesday.

Israel’s opposition leader criticised Netanyahu’s remarks, branding them a “gift” to the Australian leader.

Yair Lapid wrote on X: “The thing that most strengthens a leader in the democratic world today is a confrontation with Netanyahu, the most politically toxic leader in the Western world.

“It is unclear why Bibi is rushing to give the Prime Minister of Australia this gift.”

Diplomatic tensions flared on Monday after far-right Israeli politician Simcha Rothman’s Australian visa was cancelled ahead of a visit to the country, where he had been due to speak at events organised by the Australian Jewish Association (AJA).

Burke told local media at the time the government took “a hard line” on people seeking to “spread division”.

“If you are coming to Australia to spread a message of hate and division, we don’t want you here,” he said.

Last year, Burke also denied a visa to Israel’s former justice minister Ayelet Shaked, a right-wing politician who left parliament in 2022.

A few hours after the revocation of Rothman’s visa was announced, Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Sa’ar said he had instructed the Israeli Embassy in Canberra to “carefully examine any official Australian visa application for entry to Israel”.

He added in a post on X: “While antisemitism is raging in Australia, including manifestations of violence against Jews and Jewish institutions, the Australian government is choosing to fuel it”.

In recent months, there have been a string of antisemitic attacks in Australia – which is home to one of the world’s largest populations of Holocaust survivors per capita.

On Tuesday, the AJA said Rothman would still appear at their speaking event virtually.

“The Jewish community won’t bow down to Tony Burke or [Foreign Minister] Penny Wong,” it said in a social media post.

Australia announced in early August that it would recognise a Palestinian state, with Prime Minister Albanese saying at the time that Netanyahu was “in denial” about the consequences of the war on innocent people.

“The stopping of aid that we’ve seen and then the loss of life that we’re seeing around those aid distribution points, where people queuing for food and water are losing their lives, is just completely unacceptable,” he said.

The state of Palestine is currently recognised by 147 of the UN’s 193 member states, and Australia’s announcement came about two weeks after similar moves by the UK, France and Canada.

In response, Netanyahu launched a scathing attack on the leaders of the three countries, accusing Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney of siding with “mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers”.

More than 62,064 people have been killed as a result of Israel’s military campaign since 7 October, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Israel launched the offensive in response to the Hamas-led attack on 7 October, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.