#donbas

#donbas

Just before Zelensky and his delegation arrived at Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, the U.S. and Russian presidents spoke in a call described as "productive" by Trump and "friendly" by Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov. Ushakov, in Moscow, said Putin told Trump a 60-day ceasefire proposed by the European Union and Ukraine would prolong the war. The Kremlin aide also said Ukraine needs to make a quick decision about land in the Donbas.

A lot can be decided before the New Year,

However, Ukraine's president said sensitive issues around territorial control in Ukraine's eastern industrial heartland, along with the management of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), remain unresolved. Mr Zelensky spoke as the US showed the 20-point plan, hammered out after marathon talks in Florida in recent days, to Russian negotiators. A response is expected from Moscow today, Mr Zelensky said. The Ukrainian president briefed journalists on each point of the plan yesterday but his comments were embargoed until this morning.

Who will govern this territory, which they are calling a free economic zone' or a demilitarised zone' they don't know, said the Ukrainian president, speaking with journalists in Kyiv on Thursday. Zelenskyy said Ukraine did not believe the plan was fair without guarantees that Russian troops would not simply take over the zone after a Ukrainian withdrawal. If one side's troops have to retreat and the other side stays where they are, then what will hold back these other troops, the Russians?

Verdun in the Donbas. The future of Ukraine and Russia, of European security, and of US-Russian relations now all hang on a few small half-ruined towns in the northwestern part of Donetsk province. Indeed, given the continued risk of a radical escalation leading to actual conflict between NATO and Russia, the stakes may be higher even than that.

Citing European officials briefed on the exchange, the report said Trump adopted Russian President Vladimir Putin's talking points verbatim, warning the Ukrainian leader that if [Putin] wants it, he will destroy you. According to the newspaper, Trump threw aside Ukrainian battlefield maps and demanded that Zelensky accept Moscow's terms, including ceding the Donbas region in exchange for partial Russian concessions in southern Ukraine.

"We're sitting on our suitcases," a woman named Natalia said in Sviatohorivka, a village on the outskirts of the town of Dobropillia, in eastern Ukraine. Russia's army has advanced to within almost 10 kilometers (6 miles) of her home. Ukrainian soldiers have managed to retake some places from Russia, but the villages all around are still under constant bombardment. The only reason Natalia hasn't left Sviatohorivka yet is that her elderly parents refuse to evacuate.