Ukraine

The country

Ukraine is a country in eastern Europe, the second-largest on the continent after Russia, with its capital at Kyiv on the Dnieper River in the north-central part of the country (Britannica). It covers 603,549 square kilometres (233,032 square miles); Britannica’s published 2026 estimate puts the population at 42,459,000 (Britannica). The official language is Ukrainian, the currency is the hryvnia (UAH), and the government is a unitary multiparty republic whose legislature is the 450-seat Verkhovna Rada, or Supreme Council (Britannica). It is bounded by Belarus to the north, Russia to the east, the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov to the south, Moldova and Romania to the southwest, and Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland to the west (Britannica).

The lands that became Ukraine saw the emergence of Kievan Rus’ in the 9th century; modern statehood arrived at the Soviet Union’s end — a sovereignty declaration on July 16, 1990, an independence declaration on August 24, 1991, confirmation by popular plebiscite on December 1, 1991, and full independence with the USSR’s dissolution that month (Britannica).

The counterpart in the trilateral talks

For more than four and a half years, Ukraine has been the state counterpart in negotiations over the war with Russia — and in September 2026 that diplomatic track visibly quickened. Kyiv’s delegation is led at the working level by Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov, who on September 12 told reporters in Kyiv that Ukraine was preparing for the resumption of three-sided talks with Russia and the United States in October (Reuters).

The announcement followed days of quiet groundwork: U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had held talks in Moscow and then in Kyiv — their first visit to Moscow since February and their first-ever visit to the Ukrainian capital (Reuters). The last three-sided meeting had been in Geneva in February, and American efforts had stalled while Washington concentrated on the conflict with Iran; the sticking point remained the Ukrainian-held territory in the Donbas that Moscow claims (Reuters).

The revival became official on September 25, when both Kyiv and Moscow confirmed plans to relaunch the trilateral talks, with the United Arab Emirates emerging as the proposed host (Al Jazeera). Zelenskyy said the U.S. had proposed a technical-level three-way format and that the envoys had brought “very decent, worthwhile ideas,” while urging President Trump to press Chinese President Xi Jinping to influence Moscow (Al Jazeera). On the Russian side, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the meeting could happen soon but gave no details; President Vladimir Putin said all proposals were on the table and that Moscow was ready to resume talks after the Russian parliamentary elections (Al Jazeera). The previous day, Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev had met Witkoff and Kushner in the United States, a session Peskov said focused on economic cooperation (Al Jazeera).

The human scale of the war

Behind the diplomacy, the United Nations’ refugee agency reported that 10.8 million people inside Ukraine would need humanitarian assistance in 2026, with 3.7 million internally displaced and another 5.9 million living as refugees abroad — a reminder that any population figure for the country describes a nation profoundly scattered by war (UNHCR).

What this profile does not claim

This profile does not assert a single definitive current population; it gives Britannica’s published 2026 estimate alongside UNHCR’s displacement figures and leaves wartime estimates unreconciled. It does not say whether the planned October talks actually took place, since that lies beyond the fully-read sources. It does not describe the precise territorial terms under negotiation — only that Donbas disposition is the key issue, as Reuters reported. It does not narrate the military history of the 2022 invasion or name current officeholders beyond those appearing in the verified reporting.