The outgoing US President’s envoy to Ukraine Keith Kellogg declared that negotiators are “very close” to an agreement to end the war in Ukraine. It remains according to him, to solve only two remaining issues, which are the future of Donbass and the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant. He made this statement on Saturday at the Reagan Defense Forum. TASR informs about it according to a Reuters report.
- Keith Kellogg announced progress in negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.
- Problems such as Donbas and the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant are being solved.
“If we can solve those two issues, I think the other things will work out pretty well,” Kellogg said. “We’re almost there. We’re really, really close,” he emphasized. He compared the negotiations on the American peace plan to a race, noting that they are currently in its last ten meters. However, according to him, they are always the most challenging.
Russia currently occupies almost a fifth of Ukraine’s territory, including the entire Luhansk region and a large part of the Donetsk region, which together form Donbas. Russia makes the diplomatic settlement of the conflict conditional on the withdrawal of Ukrainians from the region. In its peace plan, the United States proposed to Ukraine that it hand over to Russia the territory not currently under its control and all the rest of the Donbass. The part of the Donetsk region from which Ukraine would withdraw would become a demilitarized zone.
Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has also occupied the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant. The original version of the peace plan envisaged that the shut down reactors would be restarted under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The produced electricity would be distributed equally between Russia and Ukraine.
The peace plan has since been modified following negotiations with the Ukrainian delegation in Geneva and Florida. According to Russia, it currently consists of 27 points, which are divided into four categories. The exact content of the updated plan is not publicly known. Kellogg also declared that the scale of casualties and injuries in the war in Ukraine was “horrendous” and unprecedented in terms of regional warfare. According to him, both Ukraine and Russia skillfully recorded more than a million dead and wounded.
