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Sergiy Kyslytsya is among those trying to negotiate an end to the conflict, which is entering its fifth year.
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It is a question many are interested in knowing the answer to following several recent rounds of peace talks, which have so far appeared to bear little fruit four years after Russia's full-scale invasion.
Another round of the US-mediated discussions is likely to take place in Geneva later this week. Ahead of it, the BBC has spoken to Sergiy Kyslytsya, a member of Ukrainian President Zelensky's delegation, who has taken part in the recent military-to-military discussions.
According to Kyslytsya, these dealings are business-like and generally free of the sort of political and historical grandstanding seen elsewhere by Moscow.
"The military has a better understanding of what is going on in the battlefield," he told me when we met in the presidential palace on Monday morning.
"It's another thing whether they [the Russians] are capable, or not, of reporting [back] directly…without cooking or changing the information," he added.
It is not an easy thing to try to end a war. The nature of the battlefield in eastern Ukraine - where thousands of drones patrol and kill over a huge so-called "grey zone" between the two sides, while 200,000 Ukrainian civilians still live in the "fortress belt" cities of the Donbas - makes the technical business of disengagement highly complex.
"You have to have a clear set of rules and protocols," Kyslytsya said, "and a way to verify and monitor."
Much of this work, he said, is complete, thanks in part to the close involvement of US officials, including General Alexus Grynkewich, Nato's top commander in Europe, and Dan Driscoll, Secretary of the Army.
It's obviously not in Kyiv's interest to criticise representatives of the Trump administration, but when Kyslytsya compliments the US delegation for its efforts, he sounds genuine.
"We have to credit the Americans for their commitment and their patience," he says, "because they sit in the meetings non-stop. They don't only obs
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