KYIV, Sept. 16 - Ukraine's foreign minister has voiced concern about the prospect of being nudged into an unfavorable agreement with Russia, adding that he hopes the West is pressuring Moscow as hard as it is pushing Kyiv for progress toward peace in the Donbas, RFE/RL reported.

A recent flurry of diplomatic activity between Ukraine and Russia has raised fresh hope for a deal between the countries that could end the more-than-five-year war in eastern Ukraine, which has killed more than 13,000 people and fueled a bigger geopolitical fight between Moscow and the West.

Western countries such as Germany, France, and the United States have become "so preoccupied by progress" that some in Kyiv are growing worried that they might force Ukraine into a bad deal with Russia for the sake of peace, Vadym Prystayko said in a brief interview on the sidelines of the Yalta European Strategy (YES) conference in the Ukrainian capital on September 14.

"I hate this specific word called 'progress.' Every time [we meet], our Western partners want to have so-called progress," said Prystayko, who was appointed as part of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's new government on August 29. "They are pushing us to make some progress. We hope they are equally pushing the Russians."

Russia and Ukraine exchanged 70 prisoners on September 7 and are discussing the possibility of swapping hundreds more. Talks in Minsk, Belarus, involving their negotiators have led to the withdrawal of forces in certain areas along the front line of the war between Kyiv's forces and Moscow-backed separatists, as well as a decline in fighting and the repair of some critical infrastructure that has eased conditions for civilians.

Their top diplomats are now working out when Zelenskiy and Russian President Vladimir Putin can meet face-to-face with their German and French counterparts in what would be the first peace summit of the so-called Normandy Four since 2016.

The developments result in part from efforts by Zelenskiy, who took office in May, to break a deadlock and find areas where relations with Russia and with Ukrainians in the areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions held by the Russia-backed separatists can be improved in hopes of laying a foundation for a lasting peace.

But amid the developments, there is also concern in Kyiv that its backers in the West may see the current moment as the best or last real chance for peace in Ukraine and thus push its leadership to make painful compromises.

Prystayko said he understood that Western leaders "are tired of dealing" with Russia-Ukraine issues and are under pressure from some businesses to lift sanctions imposed on Moscow over its role in the war and its seizure of Crimea in 2014.

"Well, you can imagine how tired we are [in Ukraine]," he said.

Speaking at the YES conference on September 13, John Tefft, who was the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in 2009-13 and to Russia in 2014-17, warned Western countries against pushing Ukraine to give up any more than it has already.

"It could lead to long-term harm of the security of this country," he said. "I think we should sit tight and let the Ukrainian government explore what they want to do."

On September 16, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that "if we are discussing local elections in the temporarily occupied territory, we must understand that there must be a clear deadline before the elections for the withdrawal of all troops from the temporarily occupied territory."

The U.S. special envoy for negotiations on the conflict in eastern Ukraine, Kurt Volker, said at YES that free and fair elections can "only take place in a free, fair and secure environment."

"That means that you can't have Russia and its proxies controlling that environment," he said. (rfe/ez)