Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks throughout a joint press convention with Portuguese Prime Minister Montenegro following their assembly in Kyiv, Ukraine, Dec. 20. EPA-Yonhap
KYIV, Ukraine — Preliminary drafts of U.S. proposals for a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia meet a lot of Kyiv’s calls for, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated Monday, though he prompt that neither aspect within the nearly four-year battle is prone to get the whole lot it needs in talks on reaching a settlement.
“General, it seems to be fairly stable at this stage,” the Ukrainian chief stated of current talks with U.S. officers who’re attempting to steer the neighboring nations towards compromises.
“There are some issues we’re most likely not prepared for, and I’m certain there are issues the Russians will not be prepared for both,” Zelenskyy instructed reporters in Kyiv.
U.S. President Donald Trump has for months been pushing for a peace settlement, however the negotiations have run into sharply conflicting calls for from Moscow and Kyiv.
U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff stated Sunday he held “productive and constructive” talks in Florida with Ukrainian and European representatives, although Trump was much less effusive the next day, saying, “The talks are going alongside.”
“We’re speaking. It is going OK,” Trump stated Monday whereas on trip at his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida. Requested if he deliberate to talk to Zelenskyy or Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump did not say, providing solely of the preventing, “I would wish to see it stopped.”
Zelenskyy, in the meantime, stated “almost 90 p.c” of Ukraine’s calls for have been included into the draft agreements.
The spine of the proposed deal is a 20-point plan, he stated. There’s additionally a framework doc on safety ensures between Ukraine, European nations, and america, in addition to a separate doc on bilateral safety ensures granted to Ukraine by the U.S.
Zelenskyy talked about a number of key factors, such because the Ukrainian military remaining at a peacetime degree of 800,000; membership within the European Union; and European forces, below the management of France and the U.Ok. and with a “backstop” from Washington, making certain “Ukraine’s safety within the air, on land, and at sea.”
“Some key nations will present presence in these domains; others will contribute to power safety, finance, bomb shelters, and so forth,” the Ukrainian president stated.
Ukraine is arguing that the bilateral doc with the U.S. must be reviewed by the U.S. Congress, with some particulars and annexes saved labeled, Zelenskyy stated.
The U.S. crew is now in talks with Russian envoys, and Washington has requested that no particulars be launched, he added.
Zelenskyy stated Monday he met along with his army commanders who reported that defensive traces are holding agency towards the Russian onslaught.
“In (current) weeks, the Russian military has considerably elevated the depth of assaults, and the variety of Russian losses has elevated accordingly,” he stated in a put up on Telegram.
Ukrainian forces hit an oil terminal, a pipeline, two parked jet fighters and two ships in a collection of strikes on Russian soil, officers stated Monday.
The assaults are a part of an ongoing marketing campaign to disrupt the Russian battle effort and sow worry behind the entrance line, the place outnumbered Ukrainian troops are straining to carry again Russia’s larger military.
The strikes additionally search to undermine Putin’s try and painting Russia as negotiating from a place of army energy in U.S.-led peace efforts, which have but to make a breakthrough on key factors.
On this pool {photograph} distributed by the Russian state company Sputnik, Russian President Vladimir Putin pauses whereas speaking with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on the sidelines of a summit of the Commonwealth of Unbiased States (CIS), a grouping of former Soviet nations on the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, Dec. 22. AP-Yonhap
The killing of a prime Russian normal by a automotive bomb in Moscow on Monday, with investigators suspecting Ukraine was behind it, may very well be one other occasion of Kyiv selecting shock targets.
Ukrainian forces struck the Tamanneftegaz oil terminal, an ammunition depot and a launch web site for assault drones inside Russian territory and Russian-held Ukrainian territory, Ukraine’s Common Employees stated in a press release Monday.
A pipeline, two docks and two ships had been broken within the southern Krasnodar area, and a big blaze broke out, the assertion stated, with out specifying what sort of weapons had been used within the assault.
It added {that a} Ukrainian-made missile additionally hit a short lived base for Russia’s 92nd River Boat Brigade in Olenivka, within the occupied Crimean Peninsula.
A separate strike focused an ammunition depot in a Russian-controlled portion of the Donetsk area, aiming to gradual the Russian advance there, the Common Employees stated. A Russian launch web site for assault drones was additionally hit.
Ukrainian partisans set hearth to 2 Russian jet fighters in an operation on Sunday night at a base close to Lipetsk, a metropolis in western Russia, in accordance with Ukraine’s army intelligence.
Russia’s Ministry of Protection stated solely that its forces shot down 41 Ukrainian drones in a single day, three of them over the Krasnodar area.
In the meantime, Russian forces saved up their concentrating on of Ukraine’s power sector, aiming to deprive civilians of warmth and working water in the course of the frigid winter. Russia has tried to knock out energy in Ukraine all through the battle, in a tactic that Ukraine refers to as “weaponizing winter.”
Vitality infrastructure throughout 5 areas had been attacked in the course of the night time, Ukraine’s Ministry of Vitality stated.
Russia struck Ukraine with 86 drones of various varieties in a single day, Ukraine’s air pressure stated. Ukrainian forces stopped 58 of them, it stated.
