The office of the Ukrainian president announced that he has received the US plan to restart the diplomatic process with the aim and that in the coming days he will discuss with Donald Trump “the main points needed to achieve peace”.
“The president of Ukraine, which, according to the assessment of the American side, could activate diplomacy,” reads the announcement of the presidency published on Telegram.
“We are ready now, as before, to work constructively with the American side, as well as with our partners in Europe and around the world, so that the result is peace,” the statement posted on Telegram said.
Reuters sources presented the plan and said the proposals included, among others, . Washington, as the same sources noted, expects Kiev to accept the main points.
The US proposal, if confirmed, will be a significant blow to Zelensky
This development, if the predictions of the plan are confirmed, is a significant blow for Kiev, as Ukraine is currently faced with new Russian advances on the ground, while Zelensky is also faced with a corruption scandal, in the context of which the parliament permanently dismissed the minister of energy and the minister of justice.
A senior Ukrainian official told Reuters earlier that Kiev has received the “messages” about the set of US proposals to end the war, which Washington has discussed with Russia. Ukraine had no role in preparing the proposals, the source said.
The above is confirmed by an article in the Financial Times according to which current and former officials from the USA and Russia participated in the drawing up of the plan. The Ukrainian leadership was informed of this earlier this week by the special envoy of the US president, Steve Witkoff, who had a meeting in Miami with the current secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine and former defense minister, Rustem Umerov. According to what became known, the two men examined all 28 points of the plan.
The FT claims, citing sources, that the plan calls for Ukraine to cede all of the rest of Donbas (Luhansk and Donetsk), including territory under Ukrainian control, and to cut the size of its armed forces in half.
Another important point of the plan is the requirement to withdraw weapons systems central to the defense of the country.
It also calls for the recognition of Russian as the official state language in Ukraine and the granting of official status to the local branch of the Russian Orthodox Church, two positions that echo long-standing political goals of the Kremlin.
From the above if it is true that it is the final proposal, it becomes clear that Russia has imposed many of its standing demands on the American negotiating team.
Kremlin: Any peace plan for Ukraine must eliminate the root causes of the conflict
Any peace plan for Ukraine should address the root causes of the conflict, the Kremlin said today, noting that while there are contacts with the US, no such plan is currently being negotiated with Washington.
The United States has told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Ukraine must accept a framework it has drawn up for ending the war with Russia, which offers Kiev to cede territory and some weapons, two people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
US news website Axios, which first reported information about the 28-point plan, said Ukraine and Europe would receive a security guarantee from the US in exchange for Kiev ceding to Russia parts of eastern Ukraine that are not currently under Moscow’s control.
The Kremlin noted that it had nothing to add to what had been said at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s summit with his US counterpart Donald Trump in August in Anchorage, Alaska.
“We cannot add anything new to what was said in Anchorage,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, clarifying that there are no formal consultations or negotiations with the US on a peace plan for Ukraine.
“Such consultations are not currently taking place. There are of course contacts, but there is no process that could be characterized as consultations”, he noted.
Asked if Putin had been briefed on the alleged “28-point peace plan,” Peskov replied: “I have nothing to add to what I have already said.
“A settlement should lead to the elimination of the root causes of this conflict,” he stressed.
Putin describes the war as a turning point in Moscow’s relations with the West, which he says humiliated Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, expanding NATO and encroaching on what he sees as Moscow’s sphere of influence, including Ukraine and Georgia.
Putin has demanded that Ukraine abandon its aspirations to join NATO, declare itself neutral and scale back its armed forces.
Former US President Joe Biden, Western European leaders and Ukraine view the war in Ukraine as an imperialist-style land grab and have repeatedly pledged to defeat Russian forces.
