Any agreement to end the war that is signed with Russia must be ratified in a referendum by the Ukrainians. , , and confirmed it this Tuesday. The vote would require 60 days of preparations and a ceasefire by the invading army. Zelensky, in a meeting with the media in kyiv, reiterated that the main obstacles for Ukrainian interests in the peace plan promoted by the United States are the withdrawal of its troops from the Donbas region and the management of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant.
Zelensky with Russia through the White House. The Ukrainian president warned that the biggest problem is clarifying what format can be agreed upon for what the team of US President Donald Trump is proposing about the Donbas region.
The Kremlin demands that Ukrainian troops withdraw from the 25% of Donetsk that they still control, something that the United States supports and which kyiv has so far refused. Donetsk makes up Donbas along with Lugansk, although the latter province is almost completely occupied. Washington proposes a demilitarized zone in this 25% of Donetsk. Zelensky responded that he could accept this possibility, but if the Russian side also withdraws its troops from an equivalent part of the territory occupied in Donetsk.
“We believe that a free economic zone [como denomina el equipo de Trump a la zona desmilitarizada] “It is an option for our sovereign State to advance along this path,” Zelensky said. The United States does not accept, at the moment, the idea that Russian troops should also withdraw from the territory. The version of the peace plan document proposed by Ukraine must now be discussed between Washington and Moscow.
The other point in which there is disagreement in Ukraine is in the management of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe and under Russian occupation since 2022. Zelensky is pressing for the Russian side not to be involved. Washington’s idea is that half of the plant’s electricity generation goes to Russia and the other to Ukraine. The Ukrainian president opens the door for that half of the generation to be for the occupier, but only if the management is Ukrainian-American.
Zelensky listed the other 18 points of the peace plan, all already known and which have practically not changed since the last negotiation between the Ukrainian and United States teams, held this week in Miami. Ukraine agrees not to be part of NATO, agrees to limit its number of troops to 800,000 soldiers and not to attack Russia. The invading country, in return, would accept the provinces of Kharkiv, Sumi and Dnipropetrovsk, and would undertake to allow Ukrainian maritime traffic in the Black Sea and river traffic through the Dnipro and Bug rivers. The front would be frozen in the provinces of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
Zelensky has stressed that they will only be able to accept the agreement, and then put it to a vote, if along with it similar to those the country would have if it were a member of NATO. Zelensky has also indicated that another condition is that there be a commitment for Ukraine to be a member of the European Union in 2027 or 2028.
A novelty in the new draft of the peace plan that Ukraine has drawn up is that it puts a figure on what it would cost to rebuild Ukraine after the invasion: 680 billion euros. This is the amount that kyiv’s allies should commit to seeking in the form of private investment or credits to the State, according to the document.
The main question is what the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, will accept. From kyiv and Brussels it is considered that the Kremlin’s postponements of a decision are ways to buy time and a sign that Putin does not want peace. Russia insists that Russian sovereignty over Donbas and the Crimean peninsula, illegally annexed in 2014, must be recognized. Trump has insisted that Ukraine must make some territorial concessions. Moscow also doubts Ukraine’s demand that international troops be deployed on the line of contact to monitor the cessation of hostilities.
Despite the negotiations and despite the Christmas holidays, the pressure on the war front remains with special intensity. The Ukrainian Armed Forces withdrew this Tuesday from the town of Siversk, in the province of Donetsk, an important enclave in defense of the triangle formed by Sloviansk, Kramatorsk and Kostiantinivka, the cities that are today the heart of the Ukrainian resistance in the region. Russia also made a surprise advance this week in Sumi province in northern Ukraine.
