Russia will demand changes to the US peace plan for Ukraine
Russia plans to seek significant changes to the 20 points of the US-Ukraine peace plan and considers this document only as an initial basis for further negotiations. This was reported by Bloomberg with reference to a source close to the Kremlin.
According to the source, Moscow considers the proposed plan to be a typical Ukrainian vision, which lacks provisions important for Russia. These include additional restrictions on the Ukrainian armed forces after the war, the status of the Russian language, the lifting of sanctions and the fate of hundreds of billions of dollars in Russian assets frozen in the West.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has not publicly commented on the new proposals. However, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that contacts with Washington would continue. According to him, the Kremlin is not planning a telephone conversation with US President Donald Trump in the near future.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has admitted that there are still disagreements between Kyiv and Washington over the territories and management of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. At the same time, he emphasised that the negotiations have moved significantly closer to finalising the documents.
According to Bloomberg, Russia insists on guarantees of NATO's non-expansion to the east and on Ukraine's neutral status even if it joins the EU. Moscow also wants Ukraine to withdraw from a part of Donetsk region that the Russian army has failed to capture in almost four years of full-scale war.
Kyiv rejects these demands and proposes to stop fighting along the current contact line. Zelenskyy said that any territorial concessions would violate Ukrainian law and would require a national referendum.
