Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office and a key participant in peace negotiations, told the Bloomberg news agency he does not expect a settlement to take long.

“They all understand the war needs to end. That’s why they are negotiating,” he said. “I don’t think it will be long.”

Russia has a genuine financial incentive to reach a deal quickly, Budanov said. “Unlike us, they are spending their own money,” he said. “These are enormous sums — already in the trillions.”

Both sides had previously held “maximalist positions,” he said, but are now gradually moving toward a compromise. He said he could not say what a compromise on Donbas might look like.

In the same article, the Bloomberg news agency reported, citing Kremlin sources, that the talks have stalled and the two sides have only succeeded in mapping out positions that remain unacceptable to each other.

The intensive negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, conducted earlier in the year with U.S. mediation, were interrupted by the outbreak of war in the Middle East. Both sides have described the pause as temporary, attributing it to the preoccupation of American negotiators, and have publicly expressed interest in resuming the process.