Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said proposals negotiated with US officials on a peace deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine could be soon finalised, after which US envoys will present them to the Kremlin.
After two days of talks in Berlin, US officials said on Monday they had resolved “90 per cent” of the issues between Russia and Ukraine, but it is not clear that an end to the war is any closer, particularly as the Russian side is absent from the talks.
The Ukrainian president said if Russia rejected the proposals it would then be a “fair request” to ask the US for more weapons and further sanctions against Moscow.
In comments to journalists via WhatsApp in the early hours of Tuesday morning, Mr Zelenskiy said the US Congress was expected to vote on the offered security guarantees for Ukraine to make them legally binding. He said the US would also hold consultations with the Russians, followed by high-level meetings that could take place as soon as this weekend.
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“We are counting on five documents. Some of them concern security guarantees: legally binding, that is, voted on and approved by the US Congress,” he said, adding that the guarantees would “mirror Article 5” of Nato. The Article 5 clause offers mutual protection for any Nato member under attack.
However, Mr Zelenskiy made clear that on the key issue of the Donbas region – which Russia is seeking to control in its entirety including areas it has not yet occupied – Ukraine saw no change in the Russian position.
“The Americans want to find a compromise, [and] they offer a ‘free economic zone’ [in the Donbas]. And I will emphasise once again: ‘free economic zone’ does not mean under the leadership of the Russian Federation.”
US officials have declined to give specific details of what the security package was likely to include, and what would happen if Russia attempted to seize more land after a peace deal was reached. They did confirm that the US did not plan to put boots on the ground in Ukraine.
Leaders of the UK, France, Germany and eight other European countries said in a joint statement that troops from a “coalition of the willing” could “assist in the regeneration of Ukraine’s forces, in securing Ukraine’s skies, and in supporting safer seas, including through operating inside Ukraine”.
They stopped short of suggesting these would be guarantees that would match Nato’s article 5, and in any case there is little sign that Russia is anywhere close to agreeing to the kind of package under discussion between Washington and Kyiv.
The head of Ukraine’s delegation to the talks, Rustem Umerov, also underlined he saw a Russian rejection of proposals as a potential outcome in which case Ukraine would seek more weapons from the US.
On Tuesday, the Kremlin said it had not seen the details of proposals on security guarantees. Its spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters that Moscow, which has in the past demanded Kyiv cede territories Russia claims as its own and ruled out the presence of any foreign troops in Ukraine, had not changed its stance on the conflict.
Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said Russia would not agree to troops from Nato countries operating in Ukraine. Asked about a potential for deployment of European forces in Ukraine outside the Nato framework, he added: “No, no, and no again.”
The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said on Monday that peace was closer than at any time since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion. But privately, European officials say that the talks are more about keeping the Trump White House on-board with supporting Ukraine than about reaching a lasting deal between Moscow and Kyiv. – Guardian
