BRUSSELS: European countries pushed back on Thursday against a US-backed peace plan for Ukraine that sources said would require Kyiv to give up more land and partially disarm, conditions long seen by Ukraine’s allies as tantamount to capitulation. Two people familiar with the matter said that Washington had signalled to President Volodymyr Zelensky that Ukraine must accept a US-drafted framework to end the war, which includes territorial concessions and curbs to Ukraine’s armed forces. The sources spoke on condition they not be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.
The acceleration in US diplomacy comes at an awkward juncture for Kyiv, with its troops on the back foot at the front and Zelensky’s government undermined by a corruption scandal. Parliament fired two cabinet ministers on Wednesday. Moscow played down any new US initiative. “Consultations are not currently underway. There are contacts, of course, but there is no process that could be called consultations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. He said Russia had nothing to add beyond the position President Vladimir Putin laid out at a summit with US President Donald Trump in August, adding that any peace deal must address the “root causes of the conflict”, a phrase Moscow has long used to refer to its demands.
‘PEACE CANNOT BE CAPITULATION,’ SAYS FRANCE European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels were careful not to comment in too much detail about a US peace plan that has not been made public. But they made clear they would not accept demands for punishing concessions from Kyiv. “Ukrainians want peace – a just peace that respects everyone’s sovereignty, a durable peace that can’t be called into question by future aggression,” said French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot. “But peace cannot be a capitulation.”
The White House has not commented on the reported proposals. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on X that Washington would “continue to develop a list of potential ideas for ending this war based on input from both sides of this conflict”. “…Achieving a durable peace will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions,” Rubio added. A US Army delegation, led by Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and the Army’s Chief of Staff Randy George, was in Kyiv and expected to meet Zelensky. They met Ukraine’s top military commander Oleksandr Syrskyi late on Wednesday. Syrskyi said he told them the best way to secure a just peace was to defend Ukraine’s airspace, extend its ability to strike deep into Russia and stabilise the front line.
Russia has been pounding Ukrainian cities and infrastructure with nightly bombardments, killing civilians and causing power cuts as winter sets in. Authorities said 22 people were still missing and 26 dead from airstrikes that destroyed an apartment block early on Wednesday, one of the worst attacks in months. In Ternopil in western Ukraine, hundreds of miles from the front, smoke was still rising from smouldering masonry as crews on cranes tried to make nearby buildings safe and uncover more bodies.
Ukraine said on Thursday it had received 1,000 bodies from Russia in the latest swap of human remains from the battlefield. Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbour in 2022, occupies almost a fifth of Ukraine and says it will fight on unless Ukraine cedes additional land, accepts permanent neutrality and cuts its armed forces. Ukraine says that would amount to capitulation and leave it unprotected should Russia attack again. — Reuters
