Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, eight years after seizing Crimea and igniting the Donbas war, and in September 2022 declared the annexation of four regions it does not fully control. Ukraine seeks its 1991 borders. Since late 2025 the two have negotiated through US mediation; no ceasefire is in force.
A symmetric arrangement: it reads the same from either side. Authored once, on one record.
The arrangement
- Status
- ActiveIn force and operating. Says nothing about how well it is working, or about which way it is heading.Last material change: 2026-09-08.
- What it covers
- DefenceDiplomaticLegal and treatyEnergyTradeCategories the arrangement is documented to include. Not a measure: a relationship covering more of them is described in more detail, not held more firmly.
Summary
The relationship's modern shape was set in 2014, when Russia seized Crimea and armed the separatist entities in Donetsk and Luhansk, and in the Minsk agreements that froze rather than resolved that war. The full-scale invasion of 24 February 2022 failed to take Kyiv, took and lost ground in the south and east through 2022–23, and settled into a drone-saturated attrition along a front of over a thousand kilometres. Russia declared the annexation of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in September 2022 and holds most of the first two and part of the second two; Ukraine's constitution and stated policy require the restoration of its 1991 borders, and it has struck deep into Russia — refineries, export terminals, the Black Sea Fleet — since 2023. A United States-led negotiating push began in November 2025 around a 28-point plan Ukraine and its European allies read as reproducing Russia's maximalist demands; trilateral talks in Geneva in February 2026 and further rounds through the spring produced no ceasefire, and the capitals-only strike pause of 5–8 September 2026 lasted exactly as long as it was written for. Russia continues to require Ukrainian withdrawal from the Donbas; Ukraine continues to seek security guarantees with a United States backstop. Vigil records the war's shape and the negotiation's state, and characterises neither side's war aims beyond what each has said.
Why it matters
This is the relationship every Watch question in the module measures movement against — force regeneration, air-defence supply, energy resilience, refining under strike, the negotiating architecture — and the reference case for how Vigil records an interstate war: as a standing adversarial relationship with a territorial dispute inside it, not as a front line.
Agreements
- Minsk II (Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements) · signed 2015-02-12 · ended 2022-02-22
The instrument that froze the Donbas war; Russia's recognition of the two separatist entities on 21 February 2022 and the invasion three days later ended it. Recorded as the last signed bilateral framework.
- Black Sea Grain Initiative · signed 2022-07-22 · ended 2023-07-17
The UN- and Türkiye-brokered export arrangement, the one wartime instrument both parties signed; Russia withdrew in July 2023 and Ukraine has since run its own corridor.
- Capitals-only strike pause · signed 2026-09-05 · ended 2026-09-08
A three-day pause covering the two capitals, agreed through the negotiating track and observed for its stated duration; nothing replaced it.
Related events
- Annexation of Crimea; war begins in Donbas Feb – Mar 2014
Territorial change · Military · Political
- Minsk II freezes the war without resolving it Feb 2015
Diplomatic
- Full-scale invasion 24 Feb 2022
Military · Territorial change
- Black Sea grain corridor opens Jul 2022
Economic · Diplomatic
- Annexation declarations and partial mobilization Sep 2022
Political · Territorial change · Leadership change
- A trilateral negotiating format, and a deadline attached to it Feb 2026
Diplomatic · Political
- The 28-point plan and the negotiating track it opened Nov 2025 – Mar 2026
Diplomatic · Political · Territorial change
- A pause that covers two capitals and nothing else 5–8 Sep 2026
Diplomatic · Military
Organisations
Structures through which this relationship operates. Not parties to it — the parties are the two actors above.
Places
Markers this module already publishes. This record adds no geographic precision of its own.
What remains unknown
- The revised plan produced at Geneva in November 2025 has never been published; "ninety per cent agreed" is one party's characterisation.
- The security guarantees Ukraine seeks and the "reliable security guarantees" the 28-point plan offered are undefined in every text read.
Readings the evidence also supports
- The negotiating track can be read as a path to a settlement or as a means by which each side manages its patron; the September pause is consistent with both.
Listed because the record's own assessment is not the only one its sources permit — not as a hedge on the assessment above.
Watch questions this relationship bears on
Standing analytical questions whose evidence runs through this relationship, each with its latest review. Derived from the Watch object, never restated here.
- Does any strike restraint outlast the visit that produced it?
- Is the eastern front still attritional, or has either side achieved operational movement?
- Can repair and imports outpace the strike campaign before winter?
- Does the negotiating architecture produce a text, a mechanism or an instrument?
- Where does the manpower constraint actually bind?
All Ukraine–Russia relationships Open in Explore
Assessed as of — 2026-09-13 Last reviewed — 2026-09-14