US peace envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Moscow today for further talks with Russia, including President Vladimir Putin, on Donald Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine, according to a report from The Guardian.
Witkoff’s visit, his second this month and fourth since January, comes as Washington tries to put pressure on Kyiv to agree to its proposal. Hoping to get results before Trump’s 100 days in office next week, Witkoff will have to find a way to convey the sense of the president’s frustration with the Russian attack on Kyiv on Thursday.
The Guardian reports that Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told CBS News that Russia was “ready to reach a deal, but there are still some specific points … which need to be fine-tuned, and we are busy with this,” as he praised Trump for being “probably the only leader on Earth who recognised the need to address the root causes of this situation.”
However, there are still big sticking points, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy repeatedly refusing to give up on any of the Russian-occupied territory, including the strategically located Crimea. On Thursday, he explained that “we do everything that our partners have proposed; only what contradicts our legislation and the constitution we cannot do.”
The Guardian notes that the Ukrainian president has powerful allies in European leaders like Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron, and in Nato secretary general Mark Rutte, who said on Thursday that it was Moscow, not Kyiv, that needed to move forward in negotiations.
Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson also criticised the proposed deal, saying Ukraine “gets nothing” under the terms offered by Trump – although the US president insisted last night that Russia “stopping the war, stopping taking the whole country” is a “pretty big concession.”
According to The Guardian, Reuters has published what it says are details of the Russia-Ukraine Deal Framework being proposed by the US. The news agency says the proposal is described as “the final offer from the United States to both sides.” The terms of the proposal include:
* A permanent ceasefire
* Both sides immediately engage in technical implementation negotiations
* Ukraine receives robust security guarantees
* Guarantor states will be an ad hoc grouping of European states plus willing non-European states
* Ukraine will not seek to join Nato
* Ukraine may pursue EU membership
* US provides de jure recognition of Russian control of Crimea
* US provides de facto recognition of Russian control of Luhansk
* US provides de facto recognition of Russian-controlled parts of Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Kherson
* Ukraine regains territory in Kharkiv oblast
* Ukraine regains control of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant through US control and administration of the plant, with electricity distributed to both sides, and also the Kakhovka Dam
* Ukraine enjoys unhindered passage on Dnipro River and control of the Kinburn Spit Economics
* United States and Ukraine will implement economic cooperation/minerals agreement
* Ukraine to be fully reconstructed and compensated financially
* Sanctions on Russia resulting from this conflict since 2014 will be removed
* US-Russian economic cooperation on energy and other industrial sectors
The Guardian has not independently verified the document.
It’s worth noting that Ukrainian officials reported that a Russian drone struck an apartment building in a southeastern Ukraine city, killing three people and injuring 10 others, according to The Guardian. Among the civilians killed in the nighttime drone strike in Pavlohrad, in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, were a child and a 76-year-old woman, the head of the regional administration, Serhii Lysak, wrote on Telegram.
Russian forces fired 103 Shahed and decoy drones at five Ukrainian regions overnight, Ukraine’s air force reported.
As the situation continues to unfold, one thing is clear: the path to peace in Ukraine will be difficult and fraught with challenges.
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