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US offers Ukraine security guarantees for 15 years under proposed peace plan, Ukrainian president says Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday, while saying he would prefer a U.S. commitment of up to 50 years to deter Russia from further attempts to seize its neighbor’s land by force.
US President Donald Trump welcomed Zelensky to his Florida resort on Sunday. and insisted that Ukraine and Russia are “closer than ever” to a peace agreement.
Negotiators, however, are still seeking a breakthrough on key issues, including the location of the withdrawal of forces and the fate of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, one of the world’s ten largest nuclear power plants. Trump stressed that the negotiations carried out for several months under the leadership of the United States could still fail.
“Without security guarantees, in reality, this war will not end,” Zelensky told reporters in voice messages responding to questions sent via a Whatsapp chat.
Ukraine fights Russia since 2014, when it illegally annexed Crimea and Moscow-backed separatists took up arms in Donbass, a vital industrial region in eastern Ukraine.
Details of the security guarantees have not been made public, but Zelenskyy said Monday they included how a peace deal would be monitored as well as the “presence” of partners. He did not give further details, but Russia said it would not accept the deployment of troops from NATO countries to Ukraine.
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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump are expected to speak in the near future, but there is no indication the Russian leader would speak to Zelensky.
French President Emmanuel Macron said kyiv’s allies would meet in Paris in early January to “finalize the concrete contributions of each country” to security guarantees.
Trump said he would consider extending U.S. security guarantees for Ukraine beyond 15 years, according to Zelenskyy. The safeguards would be approved by the US Congress as well as the parliaments of other countries involved in overseeing any settlement, he said.
Zelensky said he wanted the 20-point peace plan under discussion to be approved by Ukrainians in a national referendum.
However, holding a vote requires a ceasefire of at least 60 days, and Moscow has shown no willingness to enter into a truce without a full settlement.
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