The state of play: Russia and Ukraine (as at 22 April 2025)
A deadly "Easter truce" and stalled negotiations.
With so much of the oxygen recently getting sucked up by the Trump administration’s policies and antics1, it is all too easy to forget there are a handful of major international conflicts still unfolding across the globe. This week, Nuance Matters will focus on updating the state of play in these hot zones.
First up, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russian president Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Current status
Assessment of territorial control as at April 21, 2025 @ 1:30pm EST
Deadly Palm Sunday attack: Last Sunday (April 13, Palm Sunday), two Russian-fired ballistic missiles struck Sumy, a city in northeastern Ukraine near the border with Russia. In quick succession, these two strikes killed at least 34 civilians and injured 120 others.
Why two missiles in a short period of time? Analysts say the idea is to hit any first responders that may arrive after the first hit with the second.
Military casualties: Over 790,000 Russians and at least 400,000 Ukrainians have been killed or injured in the fighting since the war broke out in February 2022.
Civilian casualties: 650 Russians and 12,650 Ukrainians have been killed.
Despite a fall in shellings (orange section), the number of violent events has noticeably picked up this year, largely on the back of additional drone strikes (blue section).
Chinese joining the fray?: Earlier in April, the Ukrainian army captured two Chinese fighters. Zelenskyy subsequently alleged over 150 Chinese citizens were fighting for Russia along the front line. The Chinese Communist Party quickly denounced these allegations, claiming the Chinese were not taking a side in the conflict.
Russia takes back Kursk: Russian troops have reportedly pushed Ukrainian forces out of Kursk in western Russia. Ukraine launched a surprise attack on the region last summer, as an attempt to seize territory and build up leverage for future negotiations.
The ‘Easter truce’
A proposed religious pause: On Easter Saturday (April 19), Putin declared a 30-hour Easter truce from Saturday evening through Easter Sunday, arguably to demonstrate he was still open to peace talks.
Putin said how Ukraine responded would show it’s “desire, and indeed, its ability” to negotiated an end to the war.
Zelenskyy countered by saying Ukraine would follow Russia’s lead; if the Kremlin’s troops stuck to the truce, so would Ukraine, but if they didn’t Ukraine would continue to fight.
The truce is broken: Unsurprisingly, evidence suggests Russia did not abide by the terms of its own self-imposed truce. First, reporting out of Ukraine indicated troops heard explosions overnight. Then on Sunday, data from NASA captured hundreds of “satellite-detected heat anomalies”, suggesting the presence of military activity on both sides, though the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has not yet been able to verify specific reports of violations of the truce.
Both Zelenskyy and the Russian military have since accused the other side of violating the ceasefire.
According to the government in the Ukrainian region of Kherson, at least three people were killed during this mooted temporary pause.
NASA data showing satellite-detected fires in Russia/Ukraine during Putin’s proposed 30-hour Easter Truce
US-Ukraine mineral deal
MoU: On Thursday (April 17), the US and Ukraine signed a memorandum of understanding regarding Ukraine’s store of critical minerals, but details of the new arrangement are still being finalized.
A defense fund?: Discussions have also focused on creating a fund to participate in Ukraine’s reconstruction. The fund would be capitalized with revenue earned from Ukraine’s natural resources (e.g., critical minerals and oil/natural gas) and reinvested in Ukrainian infrastructure development, possibly with the contracts getting directed toward American businesses.
Another crack at the apple: Trump viewed the original critical mineral deal, abandoned after the Oval Office debacle at the end of February, as a form of repayment to the US for its billions of dollars in military and humanitarian aid.
Minerals for defense?: Reports at the end of March were that the US was looking to take control of Ukraine’s critical mineral resources, without offering Kyiv a security guarantee in return. At the time, Ukrainian officials called the proposal a “robbery” and “unfair.” Zelenskyy outright rejected this deal and brought on a team of legal advisers to help craft a response.
A final, signed deal is expected later this week.
Mapping out the location of Ukraine’s critical minerals, home to large reserves of lithium, uranium and rare earths.
Peace negotiations
Limited ceasefires: The Trump administration has gotten Moscow and Kyiv to agree on a few limited ceasefires (Black Sea and energy infrastructure) in an effort to reach a more permanent end to hostilities, but these agreements have been wrought with miscommunications on either side over details like when the actually started (and therefore, ended) and what they actually covered.
Moving the goalposts: In March, the US and Ukraine had reached a temporary ceasefire agreement, only for Putin to reject it.
Intelligence and military assistance: Ukraine agreeing to the proposal was important because it led the US to restart intelligence sharing and military assistance which had been halted after the blow-up in the Oval Office in late February.
Putin’s demands: Russia has also muddled efforts by adding increasingly unrealistic conditions like the ‘de-Nazification’ of the Ukrainian government that make a lasting ceasefire impossible. Putin has typically demanded Ukraine hold elections before any formal negotiations, ostensibly to get Zelenskyy out and a more sympathetic voice in the seat of power.
Witkoff in tow: Trump’s chief negotiating envoy (and real estate buddy) Steve Witkoff has met with Putin three times since the inauguration. Trump sees dialoguing with Russia as essential to establishing a preliminary ceasefire before a long-term peace.
But thus far, the results have been few and far between (unless you count the portrait of Trump Putin gave Witkoff to give to Trump).
Trump & co. are getting frustrated: The administration is now starting to publicly doubt the viability of continued negotiations.
Trump’s anger with Putin: At the end of March, Trump accused Putin of dragging his feet and threatened secondary sanctions on Russian oil exports if no deal was reached.2
Rubio is skeptical: After attending high-level meetings with Ukrainian and European officials in Paris hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday (April 18) that “if it is not possible to end the war in Ukraine, we need to move on…”
What ‘move on’ actually means (e.g., stop sharing intelligence with Ukraine, the US completely ignoring the conflict going forward) is unclear.3
One State Department official made clear the US would continue the existing Russian sanctions. It sounds like the US wants Ukraine to 1) accept the current front line — ceding occupied Ukrainian territory to Russia —, 2) tone down calls for NATO membership, and 3) use sanctions relief as a carrot to Russia in exchange for a long-term peace.
Trump: Later on Friday, Trump echoed Rubio’s comments.
“If for some reason one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say ‘You’re foolish, you’re fools, you’re horrible people’…And we’re just going to take a pass. But hopefully we won’t have to do that.”
This came a day after Trump said he was “not a fan” of Zelenskyy during a meeting with Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni.
Trump has also continued to verbalize Russian talking points, including the idea that it was Ukraine and Zelenskyy that started the war despite Russia being “20 times your size and then hop[ing] that people give you some missiles.”
Obligatory reminder that Trump campaigned on ending the war within 24 hours though after he won the election he quickly shifted the target to a few months.
Is Putin ready to negotiate?: Yesterday (April 21), Putin said he was open to bilateral talks with Ukrainian officials. The two sides have not met since a few weeks after the war began in 2022.
If the US abandons the war, Russia wins: This would arguably play into Moscow’s hands, as former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev not-so-subtly noted on X.
Whither Europe?
Europe’s stuck in the mud: Europe has done a lot of recent talking without much tangible change. Part of the problem is there are too many cooks in the kitchen, each with different incentives and concerns.
Those closer to Russia, e.g., Poland and the Baltic countries (e.g., Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), view the war as more of an existential threat, concluding that any appeasement to Putin now will only embolden him to strike further into Eastern Europe and former Soviet states.
Meanwhile, southern European countries like Spain and Italy do not have the same worry and are not willing to risk their troops in Ukraine.
So while some leaders (like France and the UK) have discussed a ‘coalition of the willing’ with troops on the ground in Ukraine, this perspective is not widely shared. For this ‘coalition of the willing’ to work though, the leaders say it will require US backing, which is far from a guarantee.
A German shift: After the Palm Sunday attack on Sumy, incoming German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he would be willing to send long-range Taurus missiles to Kyiv, a form of weapon the Ukrainians have long sought. Because they can strike deeper into Russian territory, and are ostensibly a more offensive weapon, Europe has typically hesitated to provide them over fears of Putin viewing this as an escalatory measure.
Coming up: On Wednesday, the British are hosting meetings with allies, including the US.
Nota bene
Public opinion: Over half of both Russians and Ukrainians support peace talks. Meanwhile, there is an increasingly partisan divide in the US over whether or not the US should help Ukraine defend itself.
Aid cuts: When the US government took a hammer to USAID and foreign assistance, this was a particularly brutal loss for Ukraine. According to the Center for Global Development, $1.4bn worth of humanitarian aid to Ukraine was cut, by far the largest dollar sum eliminated at the country level.
This has had a trickle down effect, as other major European donors have followed the US’s lead and cut their own humanitarian aid packages, leaving the vast majority of Ukrainian organizations without sufficient funds.
POW swap: To end on an encouraging note, last week the two sides exchanged over 250 service members previously captured during the war.
Hello, again, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth!
Secondary sanctions would be a US tariff on buyers of Russian oil.
Earlier this month, the Biden-appointed US ambassador to Ukraine resigned, reportedly over disagreements with the Trump administration on policy.