What Ukraine needs and wants is a mechanism of a security guarantee that actually works (whether it's foreign troops stabilizing the eastern areas forever or get back enough nukes to keep Russia away). This is a life-or-death question to Ukraine because without plausible and enforceable security there will not be a Ukraine.
Ukraine can certainly give up their now rump states of Donetsk/Lugansk plus Crimea if they were getting something like that in exchange. But until there is even a remote possibility for such security all they have is their terms of getting all their land back. If Ukraine now agreed to "peace" where they give up the land to stop the war then they would have to deal even further in order to gain enough security to prevent the next war from ever happening.
1. Yes I know, the average age of the Ukrainian conscript is 45, which is why I referenced that number.
2. The “so what” is that it’s pretty hard to argue that the war is an existential event if you are not drafting the portion of the population best able to make war (young men).
Ukraine is desperate. It's (currently) a war of attrition, it keeps going until one side suffers too much and can't replace stuff. Each side has constantly shifting limiting factors.
This is also why we've seen multiple headlines about Russia running out of stuff: they did run out of some things, then shifted to other stuff and ran out of that, then shifted to other stuff… — Ukraine has a shortage of both guns and young people right now.
Ukraine can certainly give up their now rump states of Donetsk/Lugansk plus Crimea if they were getting something like that in exchange. But until there is even a remote possibility for such security all they have is their terms of getting all their land back. If Ukraine now agreed to "peace" where they give up the land to stop the war then they would have to deal even further in order to gain enough security to prevent the next war from ever happening.