Trump gives Zelenskyy ‘days’ to respond to peace proposal

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Trump gives Zelenskyy ‘days’ to respond to peace proposal

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https://www.ft.com/content/ea36e244-4b2d-486e-881d-af7e1c25094a

Donald Trump’s envoys have given Volodymyr Zelenskyy days to respond to a proposed peace deal requiring Ukraine to accept territorial losses in exchange for unspecified US security guarantees, according to officials briefed on the conversations.

Ukraine’s president told his European counterparts that he had been pressed, during a two-hour call on Saturday, to take a swift decision by Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and the US president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. A person with knowledge of the timeline proposed to Kyiv said Trump was hoping for a deal agreed “by Christmas”.

Zelenskyy, the officials said, told the US envoys that he needed time to consult with other European allies before reacting to Washington’s proposal, which Kyiv fears could fracture western unity if the US moves ahead without European buy-in.

One of the western officials described the Ukrainian side as being stuck between demands on territory they can’t accept and a US side they can’t reject. “To be honest, the Americans are looking for a compromise today,” Zelenskyy told reporters in a briefing over WhatsApp on Monday evening.

The Ukrainian president met his counterparts from the so-called E3 — France, Germany and the UK — in London on Monday. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz hinted at the urgency of the situation at the beginning of the meeting at 10 Downing Street, saying the leaders had convened to discuss “the upcoming days. Because this could be a decisive time for all of us.”

Zelenskyy said on Tuesday evening that he was working “very actively” on components of a deal to end the war.

“The Ukrainian and European components have already been worked out in more detail, and we are ready to present them to our partners in America,” he said. “Together with the American side, we expect to make the possible steps as effective and as quickly as possible.”

Witkoff and Kushner had worked with Kyiv’s negotiators in Miami last week over three days of negotiations. Zelenskyy was represented by Rustem Umerov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, and Andriy Hnatov, chief of the general staff.

Zelenskyy has indicated that progress was made in revising the original 28-point US peace plan that had been drawn up with significant Russian input. This had initially included several “anti-Ukrainian” points which Zelenskyy said he would be unwilling to accept but has now been reduced to 20 points and is more favourable to Kyiv.

Zelenskyy also told European leaders on Monday that he feared the EU would drop a plan for a “reparations loan” to Ukraine backed by frozen Russian central bank assets, mainly over fears of upsetting Washington and losing support on European defence and security guarantees.

In an interview with Politico on Monday, Trump was asked whether he had set a timeline for Zelenskyy to agree a deal. “Well, he’s gonna have to get on the ball and start, uh, accepting things . . . cause he’s losing,” the US president said of his Ukrainian counterpart.

Russian forces have in recent months escalated their missile and drone attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and are making steady — albeit costly — gains on the battlefield in the south-east. In Donetsk region, which Russia and the US are pressing Ukraine to concede as part of a peace deal, Moscow’s forces have captured much of the strategic stronghold of Pokrovsk and are threatening its satellite town of Myrnohrad — which means city of peace — with encirclement.

The loss of those cities would deal a blow to Kyiv’s morale and grant the Kremlin a potential launch pad to strike deeper into the region. Ukrainian officials told the FT that President Vladimir Putin has falsely claimed full capture of the cities in an attempt to persuade Trump that the Russian army cannot be stopped.

In his Tuesday evening statement, Zelenskyy noted that a true peace deal still relied on buy-in from the country responsible for launching the biggest war in Europe since 1945.

“And as our partners in the negotiating teams rightly note, everything depends on whether Russia is ready to take effective steps to stop the bloodshed and prevent the war from flaring up again,” he said.