Amid the constant back-and-forth negotiations over a final end to the war in Eastern Europe, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky plans to meet with his American counterpart Donald Trump in Florida today to try to define the counter-proposal for a ceasefire with Russia.
Trump is intensifying his months-long effort to broker a deal between the parties in Europe’s worst conflict since World War II.
Tens of thousands of people have died, millions have been forced to flee their homes and large parts of eastern and southern Ukraine have been destroyed since Russia invaded in February 2022.
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The latest plan is a 20-point proposal that would freeze the front line but open the door for Ukraine to withdraw its troops from the east, where demilitarized buffer zones could be created, Zelensky said as he unveiled details of the document earlier this week.
It is the clearest statement from the Ukrainian leader on the possibility of territorial concessions as part of a plan more acceptable to Kiev than an initial 28-point proposal put forward by Washington last month that meets many of Russia’s key demands.
Zelensky’s office said a meeting with Trump was planned for Sunday in Florida, where the US president has his residence in Mar-al-Lago.
“He (Zelenski) has nothing until I approve it,” Trump told the American digital media Politico about the negotiations.
“So we’ll see what he comes up with. I think it will suit him well. I think it will suit Putin (Russian President Vladimir) well,” he added.
Rejection of the Kremlin. Part of the new plan includes a series of separate bilateral agreements between the United States and Ukraine on security, reconstruction and economic guarantees.
“We will discuss these documents and security guarantees,” Zelensky said of the next meeting in Florida. “As for sensitive issues, we will talk about Donbass and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, and we will certainly touch on other issues as well,” he added.
Moscow criticized this version of the plan and accused Ukraine of wanting to “torpedo” the negotiations. The new text differs “radically” from what Moscow negotiated with the US, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Friday.
“Without an adequate resolution of the issues underlying this crisis, it will simply be impossible to reach a final agreement,” he said. He also accused Kiev of “doubling its efforts to torpedo him.”
Zelensky said this week that there are still disagreements between Kiev and Washington over Donbas and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
The United States is urging Ukraine to withdraw from the 20% of the eastern Donetsk region it still controls, which is Russia’s main territorial demand.
He also proposed joint U.S.-Ukrainian-Russian control of the Zaporizhia power plant, Europe’s largest nuclear plant, which Russia seized during the invasion.
Zelensky said he would only be allowed to cede territory if the Ukrainian people agreed to it through a referendum and rejected Russian involvement in the management of the nuclear power plant.
Joining NATO. Ukraine appears to have made some concessions in the latest plan, which, according to Zelensky, eliminated the requirement that Kiev legally renounce its NATO membership, as well as previous clauses that recognized the territories occupied by Moscow since 2014 as Russian.
The Kremlin said Friday that foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov had a telephone conversation with U.S. officials to discuss negotiations, although he gave no further details or offered his position on the new proposal.
So far, Moscow has shown little willingness to give up its tough demands, which include Ukraine’s full withdrawal from the Donbass region and an end to its efforts to join NATO.
It also calls for a ban on the deployment of Western peacekeepers in Ukraine and strict political and military restrictions that Kiev sees as a surrender.
Zelensky noted that Ukrainian negotiators have no direct contact with Moscow and that the United States is acting as a mediator and is waiting for Russia’s response to the latest proposal.
The fighting continues on the ground. Heavy explosions rocked Kiev early yesterday as authorities warned that the Ukrainian capital was at risk of further rocket attacks.
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