Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Moscow would stop fighting in Ukraine if Kiev withdraws its forces from territories that the Kremlin says it has annexed. Moscow occupies large areas of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, in addition to parts of Kherson and Zaporizhia in the south. But Putin did not specify which Ukrainian regions he was referring to.
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– If Ukrainian forces withdraw from the territories they control, we will stop combat operations – Putin said during a visit to Kyrgyzstan. – If they do not do this, we will follow through military means.
After the attack began in February 2022, Russia claimed to annex the four regions it occupied in September of that year, although it did not control all of these regions. Moscow also incorporated Crimea into its territory in 2014.
The handover of Donetsk and Luhansk to Russia was part of the original 28-point plan put forward by the United States to end the war in Ukraine, which received criticism as too favorable to Moscow.
The draft was amended after intense negotiations between representatives of the United States and Ukraine in recent days. According to the American press, the new proposal was reduced from an initial 28 points to 19 points, with changes being made in sections such as reducing the Ukrainian Armed Forces and allocating 100 billion US dollars (about 500 billion Brazilian reais at current prices) of Russian funds frozen abroad for the country’s reconstruction.
The possibility of ceding territory to Russia represents a point of contention that prevents progress in the dialogue after nearly four years of conflict. White House special envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to travel to Moscow next week to discuss the plan with Russian officials.
In a speech during a meeting with the group of allies calling itself the “Coalition of the Willing,” the transcript of which was obtained by Reuters, Zelensky said he was ready to move forward with talks on the peace plan, including the most sensitive details. These points, such as ceding territories occupied by Russia, will need to be negotiated between US President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky.
We firmly believe that security decisions related to Ukraine must include Ukraine, and security decisions related to Europe must include Europe. The Ukrainian said: Because when a decision is made about something behind the back of a country or its people, there is always a great risk that it will not succeed. – This structure is on the table and we are ready to move forward together, with the United States, with President Trump’s personal participation.
On the American side, a member of the government told CNN that “the Ukrainians have accepted the peace agreement,” but “there are some minor details that need to be resolved.” On the social network
Trump himself has echoed this measured optimism.
He told reporters at the White House: “I thought it would be easier, but we are making progress.” – We will succeed. I think we are very close to reaching an agreement.
The initial 28-point proposal brought some clear Russian demands to the war, such as ceding occupied Ukrainian territory — about 20% of the country — international recognition as part of Russia, limits on the size of Ukrainian forces, and a permanent veto on joining NATO, the West’s main military alliance, led by the United States. There were no guarantees against a future Russian invasion or the means for the country to defend itself.
The text was strongly criticized by Kiev and its European allies, who even put forward a counter-proposal watering down some of the initial points, such as joining NATO and recommending that the status of the occupied territories should be negotiated in the future. In response, President Putin’s advisor, Yuri Ushakov, said that the alternative version was “unacceptable” and that the Kremlin preferred the initial version, which was to be prepared by the main Russian negotiator, Kirill Dmitriev.
Even with the diplomatic flurry of recent days, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio taking the lead in adapting the plan to Ukrainian interests, the Russians were counting on Trump’s impatience and his ultimatum to Kiev to accept the proposal by Thursday.
The Kremlin said it had not been informed of the changes, and avoided making public statements about the proposal. But last Tuesday, after reports of changes, Russian Chancellor Sergei Lavrov detailed some non-negotiable points.
– After Anchorage, when we thought these understandings had already been formalized, there was a long pause. Now the pause has been broken with the submission of this document. There are a number of issues that require clarification — Lavrov said in an interview.
The chancellor was referring to the last meeting between Trump and Putin, in August, in the US state of Alaska, when the Republican indicated his willingness to recognize the Crimean Peninsula, which it annexed in 2014, and force the Ukrainians to retreat in Donbass, the region in the east of the country that Moscow also wants to annex. This section, stipulated in the initial version of the plan, is considered unacceptable by Kiev, and Zelensky wants to convince Trump to abandon it.
“If the spirit and letter of Anchorage were erased from these basic understandings that we registered, the situation would be completely different,” Lavrov said after his meeting with Belarusian representatives.