New Attacks Shake Kyiv Just Ahead of Zelensky’s High-Stakes Meeting With Trump – RedState
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to meet with US President Trump on Sunday to discuss details of a proposed peace deal. But just hours before that meeting, it appears Russian President Vladimir Putin is sending a message to Ukraine and, indirectly, the United States, as Russia launched a new attack on the Ukrainian capital of kyiv.
Russia attacked kyiv and other parts of Ukraine with missiles and drones on Saturday, ahead of what President Volodymyr Zelensky called a key meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump to reach a deal ending nearly four years of war.
Ahead of the nighttime attacks, Zelensky said his talks in Florida on Sunday would focus on the territory that will be controlled by each side after the cessation of fighting that began in February 2022 with President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Russia’s smaller neighbor, Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.
Explosions rang out in kyiv as Ukrainian air defense units took action, and the military said on messaging app Telegram that missiles were being deployed. The air force said Russian drones were targeting the capital and the northeast and southern regions.
It appears that there are quite a few details to be worked out on any peace agreement, and there is a fairly significant stumbling block in the current process; The deal to be discussed on Sunday is the brainchild of Ukraine’s president and his advisers, and he will discuss it with President Trump – Vladimir Putin will apparently be presented with a proposal over which he had little or no say.
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Zelensky proposes demilitarized zone in new peace proposal
This does not seem a likely path, especially if it requires the United States to ensure Ukraine’s security after a ceasefire.
Amid continuing fierce fighting, territory remains the main diplomatic stumbling block. A 20-point blueprint of the U.S.-led campaign to achieve a peace plan is 90% complete, Zelensky told reporters in kyiv.
He said a security guarantee agreement between Ukraine and the United States was almost ready – a key element after guarantees of the post-Soviet years proved useless.
“A lot of things can be decided before the New Year,” Zelensky told Politico.
Much can be decided in a meeting between Ukraine and the United States, but the real question is whether Russia will see any reason to be interested in such a proposal – and by Russia, we mean President Putin. Putin has made his ambitions clear. Having wrested the Crimean Peninsula, once Joe Biden took office, he gathered his forces and attacked Ukraine, apparently seeking to seize territory again, at least in eastern Ukraine, where there is a significant population of ethnically Russian and Russian-speaking people. It increasingly appears that the only solution acceptable to Putin is to cede these territories to Russia.
This will be the sticking point.
Moscow is demanding that Ukraine withdraw from areas of the eastern Donetsk region that Russian troops have failed to occupy as part of their drive to secure the entire Donbass, which also includes the Luhansk region.
Kyiv wants the fighting to stop on the current lines.
Stay tuned. Things are about to get interesting.
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