so far russian pre-conditions for negotiations amount to unconditional surrender by Ukraine
What "preconditions"? Russia has consistently signaled that it's ready to sit down and talk. There are no preconditions.
What has come from the Russian side are the "conditions", for a long term settlement. If Ukraine doesn't want to even entertain those ideas briefly - then that's on them.
Russian conditions/asks:
1) Five regions that had been officially annexed into Russia. Putin and Co insist that this has to be done, within the "official administrative borders" of these five regions. My feeling is that in the end, we would just take the effective territory under our control, rather than the whole provinces.
2) Legally binding assurances that Ukraine will never apply to join NATO, and that NATO will never invite Ukraine
3) A substantial demilitarization of Ukraine, to such a level, that Ukraine stops representing a military threat to Russia. I had read that our negotiators wanted Ukraine's army reduced to 50,000 men, amongst other things. Also, there would be a ban on Ukraine developing missiles with ranges in excess of 250 KM.
4) The granting of "official" status to the Russian language, alongside Ukrainian.
5) Ensure protections for the Russian Orthodox Church. This means, removing sanctions on it, and returning all the parishes illegally seized by their upstart church.
6) Removal of sanctions imposed on Russian businesses and state agencies since 2014.
In exchange, Ukraine gets to live another day. It gets to not be erased from the map. Something that many generations of Ukrainians, over many centuries, could allegedly only ever dream of - if we are to believe the tall tales about their ancient origins.
Every single war with Russia, had previously ended in Ukraine's disappearance.
Also, nobody seems to care if they join the EU or not! That's big progress compared to 2013. So they can also record that as a win for themselves. Whatever remains of Ukraine will almost certainly join the EU.