US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday that "active work" was underway to reconcile competing Ukrainian and Russian claims to the Donetsk region, what he called one of the few "remaining items" before a peace agreement can be reached.
Rubio made the comments while testifying to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The secretary said public discourse over negotiations was creating added political pressures in Kyiv and Moscow.
"As you can imagine in Ukraine, you know, the notion that you would even consider a change in land after all that's gone in the war is not it's difficult. And in the case of Russia, they've been telling their people for two and a half years that they're winning this war overwhelmingly," he said. "So people are going to wonder, why are we giving up land if we're winning so strongly?"
