The original draft, presented to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv last week, made concessions to Moscow that crossed major red lines for Ukraine, spurring outrage from Kyiv and its allies, including Republicans in Congress. Zelensky and top officials have spent the past days in a diplomatic flurry to garner support for a better deal…
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There HAS been a 24 hour change in the original Trump Peace plan that seems to have been a Russian document ….
But?
Russia’s Putin seems to NOT be a hurry for ANY Cease-Fire…….
That new document likely incorporates at least some of the amendments proposed by the Europeans and published by Reuters news agency that point to something far more palatable for Kyiv.
In that version, an automatic veto on future Ukrainian Nato membership is gone – as well as a cap on troop numbers for the country’s armed forces.
It says no Western troops would be deployed to Ukraine permanently, but that’s not an all-out ban.
On the sensitive question of territory – land Ukrainian soldiers have been fighting and dying to defend for 11 years – there would be no handover of the rest of the Donbas region to Russia for free, and Ukraine would aim to recover occupied areas through exclusively diplomatic means. That’s something Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky previously accepted.
The full amnesty for war crimes is deleted, too.
But most critically, there’s reference to security guarantees.
Several officials, including the UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, have talked about Ukraine getting Article 5-style protection, meaning the US would be bound to come to its defence if Russia ever invaded again.
That’s the key issue which Ukraine says it can’t negotiate on.
We don’t know how many of these European ideas have made it into the new proposal, but Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz calls the deal “significantly modified” – in a positive sense.
So how did we get from a pro-Russian deal to this in just a day? It’s hard to be sure, with US hawks like President Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff in the room.
The initial Kremlin-friendly plan was rooted in Witkoff’s own visit to Russian President Vladimir Putin this spring, when he returned quoting Russia’s controversial narratives almost verbatim.
Instead, this plan seems like something Ukraine might sign up to – eventually.
Which must be why Trump has gone from berating officials in Kyiv, again, for supposedly showing him “zero gratitude”, to proclaiming that “something good” may be coming.
But how good? There is still no sign that Russia is ready to give up fighting unless it’s forced to.
“Putin is much more self-confident militarily, right now,” Tatiana Stanovaya of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center believes.
She points to a corruption scandal and political crisis in Kyiv, problems mobilising soldiers there, and military gains for Russian forces on the ground – all driving Putin’s thinking.
At best, some suggest Trump’s demand for a deal has injected new momentum into efforts to find peace, which Ukrainians, under fire, desperately want.
But it’s hard to escape the sense that these days of frantic diplomacy have only brought us back to where we started
“Russia’s position is, ‘we have laid out our demands, so do you take them or not?’ Stanovaya said. “‘If so, we will stop the war – if not, we’ll just wait until you’re ready.'”
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Russia launched a wave of attacks on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv early Tuesday, striking residential buildings and energy infrastructure, according to video footage and local authorities. At least four people were injured in Kyiv. A high-rise residential building had been hit in a district on the opposite bank of the Dnipro River, said Tymur Tkachenko, head of the capital’s military administration. Four people had been treated for injuries and at least eight rescued from the building, he said. Pictures posted on unofficial Telegram channels showed apartments on fire on upper floors. Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said another high-rise building was being evacuated after being hit in the city centre’s Pechersk district. He also reported disruptions to Kyiv’s power and water supplies.
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Ukrainian airstrikes killed one person and wounded three others in the Russian port city of Taganrog, the mayor said early Tuesday. “As a result of the massive overnight airstrike on our city, two apartment buildings, a private home, the Mechanical College building, two industrial enterprises, and Kindergarten No. 7 were damaged,” mayor Svetlana Kambulova posted to Telegram.
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Ukraine has significantly amended the US “peace plan” to end the war, removing some of Russia’s maximalist demands, people familiar with the negotiations said, as European leaders warned on Monday that no deal could be reached quickly. Volodymyr Zelenskyy may meet Donald Trump in the White House later this week, sources indicated, amid a flurry of calls between Kyiv and Washington. Luke Harding, Jon Henley and Pjotr Sauer also report that Ukraine is pressing for Europe to be involved in the talks.
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The White House has pushed back against criticism – including from within the Republican party – that Donald Trump is favouring Russia in the efforts to end the war in Ukraine. “The idea that the United States of America is not engaging with both sides equally in this war to bring it to an end is a complete and total fallacy,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday. The US president was “hopeful and optimistic” that a plan could be worked out to end the war, she said.
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The US-Russia peace proposal leaked to the media last week has thrown Washington, Kyiv and European capitals into disarray. Pjotr Sauer writes in this analysis that the plan has creating precisely the conditions Vladimir Putin has long sought: a negotiating table sharply tilted in the Russian president’s favour, with Ukraine cornered into weighing terms it cannot accept and the threat of losing its most important ally hanging over its head.
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A heating and power plant in Russia’s Moscow region has resumed operations after shutting down due to a fire caused by a Ukrainian drone strike, regional governor Andrei Vorobyov said on Monday. The attack on Sunday on the facility in Shatura, a town of about 33,000, sparked a major blaze and cut heating for residents as night temperatures hovered around freezing. It marked one of Kyiv’s most significant strikes to date on a power station deep inside Russia.
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A Lithuanian court convicted a Ukrainian national on Monday of carrying out an arson attack last year on an Ikea store in the Baltic country’s capital, Vilnius, which authorities have accused Russian military intelligence of being behind. The Vilnius regional court convicted the man of charges including a terrorist act and illegal possession of explosives and sentenced him to three years and four months in prison. The man, who was a minor at the time of the May 2024 attack, had pleaded guilty. Ikea was allegedly targeted because the company withdrew from Russia and because of Sweden’s aid to Ukraine….
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Axios on the political part for Trump & Co and Zelensky and Ukraine….
- Zelensky wrote earlier on his X account that his delegation in Geneva is focused on finding “doable solutions” to end the war.
- “Currently, there is an understanding that the American proposals may include a number of elements based on Ukrainian perspectives and critical for Ukrainian national interests. Further work is ongoing to make all elements truly effective,” he wrote.
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