Ukraine accepts ‘essence’ of new peace plan framework

Ukraine has agreed to the amended proposed peace plan framework following negotiations with the United States.

During the past week, the US tried to make a fresh attempt to resolve the war. On Sunday, talks in Geneva took place where a new draft was crafted. The next day, on Monday, talks were held between Russian officials and US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll in Abu Dhabi, with talks continuing on Tuesday.

According to a US official, Ukraine has agreed to the peace proposal by the Trump administration “with some minor details still to be worked out.”

The original 28-point US peace plan has now become 19 points.

The first draft, reportedly created after a meeting between a Russian official and a US official, had endorsed many of Moscow's key demands, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warning it could be the end of his country’s alliance with the United States.

Last Saturday, European leaders raised their concerns over the plan, claiming the proposals will “require additional work”.

The new proposals include a security guarantee similar to NATO’s Article 5 from the US, which means that an attack on Ukraine would be treated as an attack against all in NATO, a cap on the Ukrainian armed forces at 800,000 personnel during peacetime, and Ukraine commits to not recover occupied sovereign territory through military means, but through negotiations.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the new proposal now contains “fewer points than 28, and many proper considerations have been taken into account in this framework”. He said that it is the right approach, and sensitive issues will be discussed with US President Donald Trump, which could happen in the next few days.

On the other hand, following Europe's reported counterproposal to the US peace deal, put forward on Monday, Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters in Moscow: "The European plan, at first glance, is completely unconstructive and does not work for us."

Russia has not yet commented on whether it will accept the new proposal. A US Army spokesperson said that talks between Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and the Russian delegation in Abu Dhabi are “going well.”

Sergei Lavrov, Russian foreign minister, said today that if the plan “erased key understandings” that Putin and Donald Trump had reached in Alaska earlier this year, the “situation will be fundamentally different”.

Overnight, six people were killed in Kyiv from Russian strikes, as Ukraine’s armed forces detected 464 drones and 22 missiles.  In Russia, three were killed and eight wounded in an attack from Ukraine, with 249 drones taken down, 116 of those launched over the Black Sea.