Any peace deal that would see Ukraine cede territory to Russia in hopes of ending the war would be deeply unpopular with the Ukrainian people.
It would also be illegal under the country’s constitution.
US President Donald Trump, who is due to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska’s Anchorage on Friday, has suggested that a concession involving a swap of Ukrainian territories would be “to the betterment of both” sides.
However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has categorically rejected the suggestion.
Kyiv “will not give Russia any awards for what it has done”, Mr Zelensky said.
“Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupier.”
For the Ukrainian leader, such a deal would be a political disaster, risking significant public outcry after more than three years of intense bloodshed and sacrifice.
Crucially, he lacks the authority to sign off on it, as changing Ukraine’s 1991 borders runs counter to the country’s constitution.
For now, freezing the front line appears to be an outcome the Ukrainian people are willing to accept.
Russia occupies about a fifth of Ukraine, from the country’s northeast to the Crimean Peninsula, which was annexed illegally in 2014.
The front line is vast and cuts across six regions — the active front stretches for at least 1,000 kilometres (680 miles) — but if measured from along the border with Russia, it reaches as far as 2,300 kilometres (1,430 miles).
Russia controls almost all of the Luhansk region and almost two-thirds of Donetsk region, which together comprise the Donbas, as the strategic industrial heartland of Ukraine is called.
Russia has long coveted the area and illegally annexed it in the first year of the full-scale invasion, even though it did not control much of it at the time.
Russia also partially controls more than half of the Kherson region, which is critical to maintain logistical flows of supplies coming in from the land corridor in neighboring Crimea, and also parts of the Zaporizhzhia region, where the Kremlin seized Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.
