#security-guarantees

#security-guarantees

Russia still pursues its original maximalist demands, including territorial claims to control Ukraine's eastern regions, and continues to oppose the prospect of Ukraine ever joining Nato or ever hosting western troops as part of security guarantees. Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address yesterday that reliable security guarantees are the only real foundation for peace, as he warned that Russia could test it any peace settlement through strikes or hybrid operations of some kind.

"We hope that during your presidency a lot of steps [can be taken] forward, closer to membership in the EU," Zelenskyy told Christodoulides in televised remarks.

A peace deal is "90 percent ready...but the remaining 10 percent contains, in fact, everything...that will determine the fate of peace, the fate of Ukraine and Europe, and how people will live," he said in the televised address. "What does Ukraine want? Peace? Yes." "But at any cost? No. We want the end of the war. Not the end of Ukraine," he added.

United States President Donald Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for talks at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and said the two leaders were getting a lot closer, maybe very close to a deal to end the war in Ukraine. Trump and Zelenskyy reported progress on two of the most contentious issues in the peace talks: security guarantees for Ukraine and the division of eastern Ukraine's Donbas region that Russia has sought to capture.

If Ukraine gives up the fortress cities in the Donbas, the only security they can have is by being heavily armed and being backed by their allies in some way,

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has declared that his government was prepared to hold elections within three months if the United States and Kyiv's other allies can ensure the security of the voting process. Zelenskyy issued his statement on Tuesday as he faced renewed pressure from US President Donald Trump, who suggested in an interview with a news outlet that the Ukrainian government was using Russia's war on their country as an excuse to avoid elections.

Any peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine that includes an amnesty for war crimes could encourage other authoritarian leaders to attack their neighbours, Ukraine's only Nobel peace prize winner has warned. Oleksandra Matviichuk said the leaked 28-point US-Russia plan did not account for the human dimension and she supported President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's efforts to rewrite it in dialogue with White House. We need a peace, but not a pause that provides Russia a chance to retreat and regroup, the Kyiv-based human rights lawyer said.

The Trump administration shocked the world last week when it delivered a 28-point "peace plan" to Ukraine, which included demands that Kyiv cede territory to Russia that Moscow does not currently control and would ban Ukraine from joining NATO, among other controversial provisions that some US lawmakers described as amounting to a Russian "wish list." A flurry of diplomatic activity followed, leading to high-level meetings in Geneva and Abu Dhabi.

I hope the visit of President Zelensky will take place as soon as possible, because ... it will be help President Trump to continue his historical mission to end this war. Because [Trump] can say: 'Look, this is confirmed and agreed, our position with the Ukrainians. We support it, and we continue now to speak with the Russians.'