Russian and Ukrainian officials suggest peace talks are making progress as Putin's forces hammer cities

• Russian and Ukrainian officials have suggested that peace talks are making progress.
• Ukraine's lead negotiator said he was confident that a ceasefire could be reached in the coming days.

Russian and Ukrainian officials have suggested that peace talks are making progress as Vladimir Putin's forces continue to bombard cities across Ukraine.

The Financial Times reported that Russia and Ukraine made progress in advancing a 15-point peace plan.

According to the report, a draft of the Russian plan would include a ceasefire while Russia withdraws its troops from Ukraine. In return, Ukraine would have to declare neutrality and limit its military strength.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that there is "hope for reaching a compromise" with Ukraine, according to Financial Times reporter Max Seddon.

But Ukraine has expressed skepticism that Putin is truly interested in peace, and concern over what a neutrality agreement would entail.

"Our position at the negotiations is quite specific — legally verified security guarantees; ceasefire; withdrawal of Russian troops," said Mikhail Podolyak, who is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's lead negotiator.

Podolyak said in an interview with PBS, which aired on Wednesday, that Ukraine is "confident" that Russia has dried up its resources throughout the nearly three-week-long war.

"They are stuck fighting in their current positions, and they have no chances whatsoever to move further into Ukrainian territory," Podolyak told PBS in a snippet of the interview included in his tweet. "Therefore, we have much confidence that we will have a ceasefire in the coming days."

As the war inches toward a fourth week, Russia's advance into Ukraine has ground to a halt in the face of fierce Ukrainian resistance.

In a Telegram message, Podolyak said Ukraine would need "absolute security" guarantees and a genuine "powerful pool of allies."

"Ukraine does not want to depend upon bureaucratic processes which do or do not allow the closure of our sky from missiles," Podolyak said. "We need direct, concrete guarantees that requires that our sky will be closed."

He added: "Ukraine is currently in a state of all-out war with the Russian Federation. This is why our model can only be Ukrainian and can only be about legally verified security guarantees."

As Ukraine and Russia continue to engage in peace talks, the United Nations said earlier that a handful of countries — like China, France, Germany, and Israel — have also tried to mediate the ongoing war which has already killed thousands.

Meanwhile, Zelenskyy on Tuesday said he had cooled on his push for his country to join NATO.

"For years, we have heard about the supposedly open door, but we have also heard that we should not enter, and this is true and we must admit it," Zelenskyy said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has long demanded Ukraine not join the military pact, and Russian negotiators have reportedly included Ukraine's neutrality in their long list of demands.

The Kremlin has demanded that Ukraine surrender, and that the country formally recognizes the Crimea peninsula it seized in 2014 as part of Russia; that the rebel-held areas in eastern Ukraine that Russia has backed become independent states; that Ukraine de-militarize in some way; and that Ukraine's vow to never join a Western alliance like NATO is enshrined in its Constitution.