Volodymyr Zelensky wants to meet with Donald Trump in the coming days. This was announced this Friday by the president of Ukraine on his social networks. Later, in a conversation with media outlets such as the British newspaper Financial Times or the Ukrainian public television Suspilne, Zelensky has stated that the idea is that this meeting with the American leader will be this coming Sunday, December 28. The objective of the meeting, which would be the fifth between the two leaders this year, is to try to reach a consensus on the final peace proposal that must be made to Russia.
“We are not losing a single day. We have agreed to a meeting at the highest level with President Trump soon. Much can be decided for the new year,” Zelensky wrote. The American media Axios has announced that the meeting will actually be on Sunday in Mar-a-Lago (Florida), where Trump has a residence and leisure complex.
On the table is the United States peace plan to end the war in Ukraine. This document, which consists of 20 points, is being discussed by the American team with the Ukrainian and Russian sides, separately. Diplomatic efforts are being led by Trump confidant Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The main meeting place for the negotiating teams is Miami.
Russian special envoy Kirill Dmitriev received the new draft from the US administration and brought it to the Kremlin this week. Subsequently, Putin’s foreign advisor, Yuri Ushakov, contacted other White House interlocutors whose identities have not been revealed. “It has been agreed to continue the dialogue,” Dmitri Peskov, President Putin’s spokesman, said this Friday.
The announcement of the next possible meeting between Zelensky and Trump came after the two presidents spoke by phone on Thursday. Kushner and Witkoff also took part in the conversation. “We are really working 24 hours a day, seven days a week to bring the end of this brutal Russian war against Ukraine closer and to make all documents and steps realistic, effective and safe,” Zelensky said.
Ukraine and the United States have agreed on 18 of the 20 points of the peace plan. There are only two in which there is disagreement. The first is the one that proposes the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the 25% of territory that they still control in the province of Donetsk. Washington calls for this area that is now under Ukrainian rule to be a demilitarized area. kyiv replies that the Russians must demilitarize for their part a territory equivalent to occupied Donetsk. The White House is not clear about the viability of this formula because it considers that it prevents the agreement.
The other point on which there is a lack of consensus between Ukraine and the United States, as Zelensky detailed on Tuesday, is the future of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Trump proposes that the largest atomic plant in Europe, on Ukrainian soil but currently under Russian occupation, be managed by the United States and with the possible participation of Russians and Ukrainians. Half of the energy would be for the occupier and the other half for the invaded country.
Zelensky demands that only his state company Energoatom and the Americans control the plant. However, according to sources from the Russian newspaper kommersant, What Putin and Trump are negotiating is precisely the opposite of what Trump says: that the Zaporizhzhia plant is only managed by the Russians and the United States.
Putin met with big Russian businessmen behind closed doors on December 24. His spokesman has confirmed that the Kremlin has discussed the future of the nuclear plant and the Ukrainian territories with the White House. “These topics have been touched upon, they have been mentioned,” Peskov declared this Friday.
Possible Russian withdrawal
Russia has sent unflattering signals about the possibility of accepting the peace plan proposed by Ukraine and the United States. Putin’s foreign adviser, Yuri Ushakov, stated last Sunday that most of the proposals made at the three-way meetings in Miami are “categorically unacceptable” to Russia.
Moscow rejects that kyiv maintains solid armed forces and considers that all of Donbas should be under its control and without a Ukrainian military presence. Donbas is the region formed by the provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk. The latter is already almost completely taken over by Russia.
The Kremlin has indicated that it is willing to freeze the war front in the provinces of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, although it considers them its own after annexing them in its constitution. And that it could withdraw from the small parts it has occupied in the provinces of Kharkiv, Sumi and Dnipropetrovsk. Its troops continue to advance, although very slowly, in these three regions.
Zelensky warned on Tuesday that any agreement with Russia on the sovereign territory of Ukraine must be ratified by its citizens in a referendum. The Ukrainian president added that another essential condition for assuming a pact with Russia is that Western allies guarantee protection and security measures equivalent to those of a country belonging to NATO.
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