Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said the latest version of a plan to end the Russian invasion would freeze the front line, but still pave the way for Ukrainian withdrawals and the creation of demilitarised zones.
“We now have draft documents that largely reflect the joint Ukrainian-American position, in some respects the American position,” Zelensky told reporters in Kyiv on Tuesday. “Some issues are still to be resolved.”
Still, Zelensky offered an upbeat assessment, saying the negotiations had “moved significantly closer to finalising the documents”.
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Zelensky said the 20-point plan, agreed on by US and Ukrainian negotiators, was being reviewed by Moscow. The Kremlin is unlikely to abandon its hardline territorial demands and Zelensky also conceded there are some points in the document that he does not like.
But it appears Kyiv has managed to shift the plan away from an original 28-point US proposal, which adhered to many of Russia’s core demands.
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President Vladimir Putin continues to press Russia’s maximalist demands, though, including for Kyiv to give up land in eastern Donetsk that his troops have failed to capture during almost four years of fighting since the February 2022 full-scale invasion.