People clear debris following a rocket attack in Kyiv on Saturday. Russian strikes left 4 dead even as Ukraine hit  industrial sites in Russia —AFP

AP WASHINGTON

President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to broker a peace deal in Ukraine, but as he prepares to take office, peace seems as elusive as ever. Moscow and Kyiv are seeking battlefield gains to strengthen their negotiating positions ahead of any prospective talks to end the three-year-old war.

Trump, who vowed during his campaign to settle the war in 24 hours, changed that time frame earlier this month, voicing hope that peace could be negotiated in six months. His nominee for envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, says a deal could be brokered in 100 days.

Views from Moscow and Kyiv Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared Moscow's readiness for talks but emphasized that any peace deal should respect the "realities on the ground", a not-so- subtle way of saying it must take into account Russia's land gains. Russia controls about a fifth of Ukrainian territory, including the Crimean Peninsula that was annexed illegally in 2014. It held the battlefield initiative for most of 2024

In June, Putin also said that Ukraine must also renounce its NATO bid and fully withdraw its forces from Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – the regions Russia annexed in September 2022 -- demands that Ukraine and the West have rejected.  Moscow also wants the West to lift its sanctions that have limited Moscow's access to global markets. Last week, President Joe Biden sharpened the pain for Moscow by expanding sanctions on Russia's vital energy sector, including its shadow shipping fleet used to bypass earlier restrictions.