According to Axios, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is facing increased pressure from the United States to agree to important territorial and other concessions as part of US leader Donald Trump’s “peace plan.”
Source: Axios
Details: The publication notes that after weeks of intense diplomatic negotiations, Ukrainians still believe that some aspects of the current US plan benefit Moscow, and the US is putting much more pressure on Zelensky than on Russian ruler Vladimir Putin.
Axios adds that a US official denied this, emphasizing that the US had also pressured Putin to soften his demands.
A Ukrainian official told Axios that Kyiv believes the US offer has worsened since Trump negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner held a 5-hour meeting with Putin last week in the Kremlin.
the official added that Witkoff and kushner seemed to want a clear “yes” from Zelensky when they discussed the plan with him during a two-hour telephone conversation on Saturday.
“It seemed that the United states was trying in different ways to convince us of Russia’s desire to take over the entire donbass, and that the Americans wanted Zelensky to agree to all this during the telephone conversation,” the Ukrainian official said.
Zelensky said in a phone call with Witkoff and Kushner that he received the US proposal only an hour ago and had not yet read it, US and Ukrainian officials said.
The US official said this was strange because the US had handed over an updated proposal a day earlier. The Ukrainian official noted that although some documents were provided the day before, others were received shortly before the call.
The Ukrainian official said the U.S. proposal contained tougher conditions than previous versions on issues such as territory and control of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant and did not answer key questions about security guarantees.
Though, according to the Ukrainian official, the American side seemed to expect Zelensky to simply agree to the terms over the phone.
The American official, Axios writes, insisted that the current project was substantially influenced by Ukrainian proposals, and that Kushner and Witkoff were pressuring Putin to agree to some of Ukraine’s demands.
Literally from the publication: “But this situation reflects the underlying mistrust between the Zelensky and Trump administrations, despite the many hours their teams spent negotiating.”
Details: The publication recalls that on Monday Zelensky met in london with the leaders of Great Britain, France and Germany to discuss a common position on Trump’s plan.