US still pushing big territorial concessions from Ukraine: Zelensky

KYIV: The United States is still pushing for Kyiv to make big territorial concessions to Russia to halt the war that started with Moscow’s February 2022 invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday.

Washington wants only Ukraine to withdraw its troops from parts of the Donetsk region, not Russia, where a demilitarised “free economic zone” as a buffer between the two armies would be installed, Zelensky told reporters, including from AFP. Under the latest US plan, Moscow would also stay where it is in the south of the country, but pull some of its troops out of Ukrainian regions that Russian President Vladimir Putin has not claimed to have annexed in the north.

Zelensky’s remarks appear to show little has changed in Washington’s core position on how the conflict should end since it sent a 28-point plan to Kyiv and Moscow last month that heavily favoured Russia.

Ukraine has been revising that and this week sent a 20-point counter-proposal to Washington, the full details of which have not been published.

“We have two key points of disagreement: the territories of Donetsk and everything related to them, and the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. These are the two topics we continue to discuss,” Zelensky told reporters at a briefing.

“They see Ukrainian forces leaving the territory of Donetsk region, and the supposed compromise is that Russian forces do not enter this territory… which they already call a ‘free economic zone’,” Zelensky said about the US plan.

Zelensky has long said he has no “constitutional” or “moral” right to cede Ukrainian land, and said his citizens should have the final say on the issue of territory.

“I believe that the people of Ukraine will answer this question. Whether through elections or a referendum, there must be a position from the people of Ukraine,” he said. Zelensky also pushed back against the idea of a unilateral Ukrainian withdrawal in the Donetsk region.

“Why doesn’t the other side of the war pull back the same distance in the other direction?” he said, adding there were “a great many questions” still unresolved.