A drier peace plan for Ukraine and fewer concessions to Russia. After Geneva talks attended by negotiators from the United States and Ukraine, Donald Trump’s 28-point draft to end the war was reduced to 19. However, according to what several officials told the Washington Post, there is still no agreement on a ‘revised and improved’ version of the document.
Oleksandr Bevs, an adviser to Andriy Yermak who led the Ukrainian delegation, wrote on Facebook that the 28-point plan “in the words everyone has seen, no longer exists, some points have been removed, some changed. No objection from Ukraine has gone unanswered.”
The basis of the talks remains the original American proposal, and not a separate draft of the European document circulated at the weekend. The same source added that Europe’s suggestions were “useful”, but the Americans remained focused on their initial document as a framework for discussions.
European Plan
The European counter-proposal is also based on the US plan, working on Trump’s proposed 28 points – also so as not to distract the US government and risk being knocked out of the negotiations – but contains substantial differences with the American plan starting from territorial concessions to Russia that are contained in the US draft and not mentioned in the European version. Not only that. The European document also softened the tone with regard to the limits of NATO action, not even completely excluding the possibility of Kiev joining the Alliance and increasing the number of Ukrainian troops to 800 thousand (compared to the 600 thousand indicated by Trump’s plan). Regarding sanctions, Europe linked the halt to Moscow’s signing of a peace agreement and compensating Ukraine with frozen Russian assets.
Kremlin rejection
A version that the Kremlin does not like at all. The European counter-proposal appears “at first glance not very constructive” and “unsuccessful for Russia”, foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said, saying he was more optimistic regarding Trump’s plans to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. “Not all, but many indications regarding this plan seem acceptable to us,” Ushakov said, underlining that “there is a lot of speculation around peace plans for Ukraine” but “Russia only believes in information received directly from the United States.”
Ushakov assumed that the United States “will soon make contact with Russia to personally discuss the details of the peace plan, at the moment there is no concrete agreement.”
