Zelensky will travel to Florida to meet Trump on Sunday as Ukraine considers a new 20-point peace proposal to end the war.
AFP
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is to meet US President Donald Trump in Florida on Sunday for talks on how to end the Russian invasion, Kyiv said Friday.
The meeting to discuss new peace proposals comes amid Trump’s intensified efforts to broker an agreement to end Europe’s worst conflict since World War II.
Tens of thousands have been killed, millions forced to flee their homes and much of eastern and southern Ukraine destroyed since Russia invaded in February 2022.
The latest plan is a 20-point proposal that would freeze the front line but open the door for
Ukraine to pull back troops from the east, where demilitarised buffer zones could be created, according to details revealed by Zelensky this week.
It was the clearest the Ukrainian leader has been in acknowledging the possibility of territorial concessions. The plan was more acceptable to Kyiv than an initial 28-point proposal tabled by Washington last month that adhered to many of Russia’s core demands.
Moscow has yet to respond to the latest proposal, but has indicated it would not water down of its sweeping demands.
“Over the weekend, I think on Sunday, in Florida, we will have a meeting with President Trump,” Zelensky said in a message to journalists on Friday.
His office later said a meeting had been “planned” for Sunday in the southern US state where Trump has a home.
Disagreements remain over territory, nuclear plant
Part of the plan includes separate US-Ukraine bilateral agreements on security guarantees, reconstruction and the economy. Zelensky said they were changing on a daily basis.
“We will discuss these documents, security guarantees,” he said.
“As for sensitive issues, we will discuss Donbas and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, and we will certainly discuss other issues,” he added.
Zelensky said this week there was still disagreements between Kyiv and Washington over those two core issues.
Washington is pushing Ukraine to withdraw from the 20 percent of the eastern Donetsk region that it still controls - Russia’s main territorial demand.
It has also proposed joint US-Ukrainian-Russian control of the Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest nuclear plant that Russia seized during the invasion.
Zelensky said he could only give up more land if the Ukrainian people agree to it through a referendum, and does not want Russian participation in the nuclear plant.
Ukraine did appear to have won some concessions in the latest plan, which, according to Zelensky, removed a requirement for Kyiv to legally renounce its bid to join NATO as well as previous clauses on territory seized by Russia since 2014 being recognised as belonging to Moscow.
The Kremlin said Friday that foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov had held a telephone call with US officials to discuss the negotiations. It did not elaborate and has not indicated its position on the latest plan.
Moscow has shown little inclination to abandon its hardline territorial demands that Ukraine fully withdraw from the eastern region of Donbas and end efforts to join NATO.
It also wants a ban on Western countries deploying peacekeeping troops in Ukraine and sweeping political and military restrictions that Kyiv says are tantamount to capitulation.
Zelensky said Ukrainian negotiators were not directly in touch with Moscow, but that the United States acted as intermediary and was awaiting Russia’s response to the latest proposal.
“I think we will know their official response in the coming days,” Zelensky said.
He expressed scepticism over whether Moscow genuinely wanted to halt its invasion. “Russia is always looking for reasons not to agree,” he said.
