Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is supposed to meet with U.S. President Trump on Sunday to hammer out details on a proposed peace deal. But only hours ahead of that meeting, it sure looks like Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is sending a message to Ukraine and, indirectly, to the United States, as Russia has launched yet another attack on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.
Russia attacked Kyiv and other regions of Ukraine with missiles and drones on Saturday, ahead of what President Volodymyr Zelensky said would be a key meeting with US President Donald Trump to work out a deal to end nearly four years of war.
Before the overnight attacks, Zelensky said his talks in Florida on Sunday would focus on the territory to be controlled by each side after a halt to the fighting that began in February 2022 with President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Russia’s smaller neighbour, Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War Two.
Explosions sounded in Kyiv as Ukraine’s air defence units went into action, and the military said on the Telegram messaging app that missiles were being deployed. The air force said Russian drones were targeting the capital and regions in the northeast and south.
There appear to be quite a few details to be hammered out on any peace deal, and there’s one rather major stumbling block in the current process; the deal that is to be discussed Sunday is the brainchild of Ukraine’s president and his advisors, and he will be discussing it with President Trump – Vladimir Putin apparently is going to be presented with a proposal he had little or no say in drafting.
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Zelensky Proposes Demilitarized Zone in New Peace Proposal
That doesn’t seem a likely path, especially when it commits the United States to ensuring Ukrainian security after a cease-fire.
Amid the continued fierce fighting, territory remains the main diplomatic stumbling block. A 20-point draft in the U.S.-driven campaign to clinch a peace plan is 90% complete, Zelensky told journalists in Kyiv.
He said a security guarantee agreement between Ukraine and the U.S. was almost ready – a key element after guarantees in earlier post-Soviet years proved meaningless.
“A lot can be decided before the New Year,” Zelensky told Politico.
A lot can be decided in a meeting between Ukraine and the USA, but the real question is whether Russia will see any reason to care about any such proposal – and by Russia, we mean President Putin. Putin has made his ambitions pretty clear. After biting off the Crimean Peninsula, once Joe Biden took office, he marshaled forces and attacked Ukraine, looking apparently to once again bite off territory, at least in eastern Ukraine, where there is a significant population of ethnically Russian, Russian-speaking people. It’s looking more and more like the only solution that will be acceptable to Putin is one that will cede Russia those territories.
This will be the sticking point.
Moscow demands that Ukraine withdraw from the areas of the eastern region of Donetsk that Russian troops have failed to occupy in their drive to secure all of the Donbas, which also includes the Luhansk region.
Kyiv wants the fighting halted at the current lines.
Stay tuned. Things are about to get interesting.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.
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