Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has given details of an updated peace plan that offers Russia the potential withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the east that Moscow has demanded.
Giving details of the 20-point plan agreed by US and Ukrainian negotiators in Florida at the weekend, Zelensky said the Russians would respond on Wednesday once the Americans had spoken to them.
Describing the plan as “the main framework for ending the war” Zelensky said it proposed security guarantees from the US, Nato and Europeans for a co-ordinated military response if Russia invaded Ukraine again.
On the key question of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas, Zelensky said a “free economic zone” was a potential option.
He told journalists that as Ukraine was against withdrawal, US negotiators were looking to establish a demilitarised zone or a free economic zone.
“There are two options,” Zelensky said, “either the war continues, or something will have to be decided regarding all potential economic zones.”
The 20-point plan is seen as an update of an original 28-point document, agreed by US envoy Steve Witkoff with the Russians several weeks ago, which was widely seen as heavily geared towards the Kremlin’s demands.
The Russians have insisted that Ukraine pulls out of almost a quarter of its own territory in the eastern Donetsk region in return for a peace deal. The rest is already under Russian occupation.
Sensitive issues including questions over territory would have to be resolved “at the leaders’ level”, but the new draft would provide Ukraine with strong security guarantees and a military strength of 800,000, Zelensky explained.
Much of the updated plan resembles what came out of recent talks in Berlin involving US negotiators Witkoff and Jared Kushner with Ukrainian and European leaders. The setting then moved to Miami last weekend where US President Donald Trump’s team spoke separately to Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev and then Ukrainian and European officials.
There now appears to be far more detail on the territorial issue, although it is clear the Ukrainian side was unable to reach a consensus.
If Ukraine was prepared to pull its heavy forces back by five, 10 or 40km in the 25% of Donetsk it still holds to create a “free economic zone”, making it virtually demilitarised, then Zelensky explained Russia would have to do the same “accordingly by five, 10, or 40km”.
He emphasised that an economic zone would also have to be set up around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant currently occupied by Russia, and that Russian troops would have to pull out of four other Ukrainian regions – Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, Sumy, and Kharkiv.
