The president of Ukraine said today that they are still demanding significant concessions from Kiev in negotiations to end the war with Russia, such as the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the Donbass.
The administration of US President Donald Trump proposed three weeks ago a plan to end the war that broke out almost four years ago, with the Russian invasion, in February 2022. This text is being discussed separately with the Russians and the Ukrainians.
According to Zelensky, the two issues that remain to be discussed are control of the Donetsk region, where the fighting has been mainly concentrated, and control of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, which the Russians have taken over.
“Free and Demilitarized Economic Zone”
Speaking to journalists, including AFP correspondents, they even control the creation of a “free and demilitarized economic zone”.
The Americans “want Ukrainian forces to withdraw from this territory of the Donetsk region, and the supposed concession is that Russian forces will not penetrate” into those territories, he said. “Who will govern this territory that (the Americans) already call a ‘free economic zone’ or a ‘demilitarized zone,’ they don’t know,” he continued. The US is also proposing to withdraw Russian troops from the Ukrainian regions of Sumy, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk, but not from Kherson and Zaporizhia.
The provinces of Donetsk (about 80% controlled by Russia) and neighboring Lugansk are the Kremlin’s top priority. As of 2022, Moscow has announced their annexation, as it did with the two other southern Ukrainian regions it partially controls, Kherson and Zaporizhia.
Regarding security guarantees, Zelenskiy said he had a “constructive and in-depth discussion” with the American team. Present on that phone call were US Secretaries of State and Defense Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
In a post on the X platform, the Ukrainian president wrote that the country needs to know how its partners will respond in the event that Russia launches a new attack, after the peace agreement. Kiev and Washington agreed to continue talks to reach a clear agreement on security guarantees.
Election or referendum
Zelensky noted, however, that, in any case, it would be necessary to hold “elections” or a “referendum” in Ukraine to resolve the territorial issue. On Tuesday he had declared he was ready to organize presidential elections, as long as the US, in cooperation with the Europeans, could guarantee the security of the process.
On Wednesday, two Ukrainian officials said Kiev had handed the US its own version of the peace plan, as the US president appeared to be losing patience with Kiev and the Europeans.
Zelensky confirmed today that the US is seeking a deal “as soon as possible”.
The version of the US plan revised by the Ukrainians at the Geneva and Florida negotiations has not been made public. A text was also given to the Kremlin when Witkov visited Moscow last week.
