Days after Ukrainian troops seized part of Russia’s Kursk region in a surprise attack, President Vladimir Putin told defense officials their “main objective” was to repel the invasion. Six months later,

Russia said that discussions with Washington were underway regarding potential peace talks to end the war nearly three years after Moscow’s full-scale invasion.

That will take some doing. Putin remains uninterested in peace talks as long as Russian troops continue to gain ground in Ukraine’s east, albeit at a slow pace, and while Ukrainian forces hold seized territory in the Kursk region inside Russia, according to John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, and other former officials.