WASHINGTON – The Ukrainian defense minister told American officials that Kiev is on board the Trump peace framework announced in Paris by two special missions dedicated to ending Russian invasions this week, a senior official told US officials.
The question now is whether Moscow is frustrating Trump’s attempts to take away the complete ceasefire and peace deal.
“This week in London, we want to resolve a complete and comprehensive ceasefire,” the official said. “The intention is after that [discussions] With the Russians, they say, “OK, this is your best final offer.”
“And once we get it, the next step is decided,” they added, claiming Trump was ready to leave the table without Moscow’s buy-in, putting the conflict in the hands of American European allies.
Meanwhile, Kyiv’s defense chief Rustem Umerov and his colleagues will work through the remaining reservations on the peace plan. Most of them surround the location where lines are drawn in ceasefires that freeze the enemy.
“I think some of the concerns they have are on the land… just what they call ‘de jure’ and ‘de facto’,” the administrative authorities said. “The “fact” means that we are aware that the Russians are occupying this land, but we do not say [Ukraine is] I’m going to give up that forever. “Dejerre” means that we accept it [the Russians] If you incorporate this land, you will never see it again. ”
Ukrainian President Voldymir Zelensky said he would never recognize the territory of the Russian occupied territories as belonging to Moscow.
However, Zelensky has shown an willingness to freeze combat along the current lines, and believes Russia accounts for around 20% of Ukraine’s territory.
To move Russia to the table, the special president’s envoy Steve Witkov may offer Moscow a “carrot” of reduced sanctions — and perhaps the freeze on seized assets has not been frozen, the official said.
“The carrots see for Russians as ‘how to reduce the sanctions that are currently on Russians,” they explained. “The other is, “How do you deal with frozen Russian assets? 300 billion dollars in Brussels, what will happen to them too?”
But experts say it would go against Trump’s previous threat to ratchet financial pressure on Moscow.
“[Trump] It’s been very tough for Ukrainians and cut off the support and military aid from the Intelligence News when he doesn’t feel like he’s got the ‘yes’ he wanted to agree to a ceasefire from Ukrainians,” said Alex Pritzas of the Atlantic Council.
“The Russians continue to infringe on ceasefires they have registered before, refuse to cooperate with ceasefire agreements on reasonable terms, continue to launch ballistic missile and drone attacks, killing Ukrainian civilians.”
“It’s all basically about hitting President Trump on the nose and embarrassing him on the international stage.
“From peace from day one, failure to achieve the goals he set and abandoning Ukraine to a Russian attack would be characterized as a loss for both the US and NATO.”
The White House should instead crack down on Russian President Vladimir Putin “has not been responsible for his actions for the past 25 years,” Pritzas continued.
“That’s why we continue to see this behavior (from Russia), so if we don’t change this behavior, we can hope that we can see the same thing from Putin,” he said.
“I think the Ukrainians are showing that they are committed to the peace process. They have already agreed to a ceasefire, and those who do not agree are Russians, and if that continues, if the US cuts off aid or military support to Ukraine in the long run, it will be put in a position to further attack Russia and potentially suck up the territory.
