Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will discuss territorial issues, the main stumbling block in talks to end the war, with US President Donald Trump in Florida tomorrow, as a 20-point peace framework and a security guarantee deal near completion.
Announcing the meeting, Zelenskiy said “a lot can be decided before the New Year,” as Washington drives efforts to end Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine, Europe’s deadliest conflict since the Second World War.
“As for the sensitive issues: We will discuss both Donbas and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. We will certainly discuss other issues as well,” he told reporters in a WhatsApp chat.
Zelenskiy hopes to talk Trump off a US proposal that would see Ukrainian forces withdraw from the Donbas altogether. If he is not able to push the US to a ‘strong’ position on the issue of territorial concessions, Axios cited him as saying in separate comments, he is open to putting the Washington-led ‘20-point’ peace plan to a referendum – as long as Russia agrees to a 60-day ceasefire to allow Ukraine to prepare for and hold such a vote.
Moscow wants Ukraine to withdraw from the parts of the eastern Donetsk region that Russian troops have failed to occupy during almost four years of war, as it seeks full control of the Donbas, comprising the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Kyiv wants fighting to be halted at current battle lines.
The US, seeking a compromise, proposed a free economic zone if Ukraine leaves the area. The proposal gave no details on how the zone would function. Territorial issues remain a hurdle to negotiations moving forward. Any compromises on territory should be decided by the Ukrainian people in a potential referendum, Zelenskiy said.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s biggest, is located on the front line and is controlled by Russian forces.
Zelenskiy said in his statement on WhatsApp that his meeting with Trump aimed to ‘refine things’ in the drafts and to discuss potential deals on Ukraine’s economy.
He added that he was not ready to say if any deal would be signed during his visit, but Ukraine was open to it.
A security guarantee agreement between Ukraine and the US was ‘almost ready’ and the 20-point plan draft was 90pc complete, Zelenskiy said.
Wary of failed guarantees from allies in the past, Ukraine is seeking robust and legally binding deals to prevent further Russian aggression.
Trump, who has at times expressed frustration with the slow pace of progress in the negotiations, previously suggested that he would meet with Zelenskiy if he felt that a major diplomatic advance was possible.
European leaders might join the talks online, according to Zelenskiy. Yesterday, he discussed “significant progress” in the peace efforts with Finland’s President Alexander Stubb.
l President Vladimir Putin told some of Russia’s top businessmen that he might be open to swapping some territory controlled by Russian forces in Ukraine but that he wanted the whole of Donbas, the Kommersant newspaper reported.
Andrei Kolesnikov, the Kremlin correspondent for the Kommersant said that Putin briefed top businessmen on the details of the plan.
“Vladimir Putin asserted that the Russian side is still ready to make the concessions that he made in Anchorage. In other words, that ‘Donbas is ours,’” Kommersant reported.
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