US is pressuring Zelenskyy on territorial concessions in Trump’s "peace plan," according to Axios
Washington is increasing pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, demanding that he agree to territorial and other concessions within the framework of Trump's peace plan. Kyiv considers certain provisions to be beneficial to Moscow.
According to Censor.NET, Axios reports on this.
It is noted that Ukrainian officials believe that the US is putting much more pressure on Zelenskyy than on Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. However, an American official denied this to the publication, stressing that the US also pressured Putin to soften his demands.
A Ukrainian official told Axios that, in Kyiv's view, the US proposal had deteriorated after Trump's negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner held a five-hour meeting with Putin last week in the Kremlin.
The official added that Witkoff and Kushner seemed to want a clear "yes" from Zelenskyy when they discussed the plan with him during a two-hour phone call on Saturday.
"It felt like the U.S. was trying to sell us in different ways the Russian desire to take the whole of Donbas and that the Americans wanted Zelensky to accept all of it in the phone call," the Ukrainian official said.
The US proposal contains tougher conditions
During a telephone conversation with Witkoff and Kushner, Zelenskyy said that he had received the US proposal only an hour before the call and had not yet had time to familiarise himself with it, according to American and Ukrainian officials.
The American representative noted that this seemed strange, as the updated US proposal had been sent the day before. The Ukrainian official clarified that some of the documents had been received in advance, while others had been delivered immediately before the conversation.
According to the Ukrainian official, the US proposal contained tougher conditions than previous versions regarding territory and control over the ZNPP, while failing to provide answers to key questions regarding security guarantees.
At the same time, he said, the American side seemed to expect Zelenskyy to simply agree to the terms during the call.
According to Axios, the American official assured that the Ukrainian proposals had a significant impact on the current project, and Kushner and Witkoff tried to influence Putin to agree to some of Ukraine's demands.
"But the whole episode reflects the simmering distrust between the Zelensky and Trump administrations, despite the many hours their teams have spent negotiating," the publication says.
US peace plan
- On 23 November, negotiations began in Geneva between delegations from Ukraine and the US on a peace plan to end Russia's war against Ukraine.
- Earlier it was reported that the Ukrainian delegation had already held meetings with EU advisers in Geneva.
- Later, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the first results of the negotiations taking place in Geneva with the participation of delegations from the US, Ukraine, the EU and the UK on the American plan to end Russia's war against Ukraine.
- NSDC Secretary Rustem Umerov reported that the current version of the US peace plan to end Russia's war against Ukraine is in the final stages of approval and already reflects most of Ukraine's key priorities.
- Following the talks in Geneva on Sunday, 23 November, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the Washington team would make "some changes" to the American peace plan.
- The new US peace plan to resolve the Russian-Ukrainian war has been reduced from 28 points to 19.
- On 25 November, Trump sent his special envoy Steve Witkoff to Moscow to meet with Putin. He instructed his other special envoy, Dan Driscoll, to hold talks with Ukraine in Kyiv.
- On 2 December, dictator Vladimir Putin met with US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.
