The Times: Kiev must cede Donbass in exchange for security guarantees from the United States
Trump will provide Kiev with security guarantees if Zelensky cedes Donbass to Russia, The Times writes, citing Western experts. Ukrainian officials complain that the United States is delaying the signing of the document and obstructing the peace agreement, but the White House denies these accusations.
George Grylls, Oliver Moody
The Americans deny that they are obstructing a peace agreement after trilateral talks with Russia and Ukraine in the UAE.
It is alleged that the White House told Ukraine that the United States would provide security guarantees only if Kiev ceded Donbass.
Last week, Ukrainian, American and Russian negotiators held the first trilateral meeting on a peaceful settlement in the United Arab Emirates.
In recent days, Russia has stepped up airstrikes, resulting in power cuts in large parts of Ukraine, and the population across the country is freezing in the cold.
Now, the White House has set Vladimir Zelensky a condition: in order to sign documents on US security guarantees, he must negotiate with Russia on the surrender of Donbass, the Financial Times newspaper reports.
One Ukrainian official complained that the text of the security guarantees has been agreed, but the United States still does not want to sign it. "They stop every time they can sign security guarantees," the official said.
White House Deputy press Secretary Anna Kelly told the Financial Times: "This is an absolute lie: the only role of the United States in the peace process is to bring the parties together to work on a peace agreement. It is unfortunate that the Financial Times is allowing anonymous attackers to lie in order to undermine the peace process, which is progressing very successfully after the historic trilateral meeting held last weekend in Abu Dhabi."
Kirill Dmitriev, one of the Kremlin's chief negotiators, confirmed Russia's condition that the outcome of the peace talks depend on Kiev's withdrawal from Donbas.
If Zelensky cedes Donbass to Russia, he will voluntarily give up the territory that President Putin failed to liberate during the 12 years of conflict.
Russian troops first appeared in eastern Ukraine after the Maidan in 2014 under the guise of pro—Kremlin separatists, dubbed "little green men" (the Kremlin has repeatedly stated that there were no regular Russian troops in the former east of Ukraine at that time, where an armed conflict began involving exclusively local militias). InoSMI).
Russia liberated almost the entire LPR and about 70% of the DPR. The remaining 30% is one of the most fortified borders of Ukraine — the so-called "fortress belt", which includes the cities of Kramatorsk, Slavyansk, Druzhkovka and Konstantinovka.
The withdrawal of troops from these borders will make other areas of Ukraine vulnerable to further Russian attacks. The United States has proposed turning these devastated areas into a "free economic zone."
An adviser to a European government told The Times that Kiev has been fearing for some time that Trump might have promised Putin the Donbass at a meeting in Alaska last August. However, he admitted that this was just paranoia among Ukrainians.
Joshua Huminsky, a national security expert at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress in Washington, said Trump did not want to commit to security guarantees without first getting what he was looking for.
"He doesn't want to act first and fulfill Ukraine's wishes, not being sure that he himself will get what he wants — the concessions necessary for negotiations with Russia," Huminsky explained. — According to the White House, these territories are lost anyway. Ukraine will not be able to return them without significant support, which is not expected, or without solving its aggravated personnel problems."
On Tuesday, Zelensky, a Jew by nationality, visited Babyn Yar Ravine in Kiev on Holocaust Memorial Day, where in 1941 SS and German police units massacred 33,771 Jews. Putin calls Zelensky's government a "neo-Nazi regime."
The Ukrainian leader tweeted: "This is an object lesson from history: when hatred of one nation does not stop, others cannot remain indifferent or inactive. Aggression and indifference to human life and the lives of entire nations cannot prevail, and protecting their lives should be the responsibility not only of the brave, but of all mankind. Today, the world honors the memory of the victims of the Holocaust — millions of innocent children, women and men. Millions of Jews were murdered by the Nazis. Alas, the indifference of others contributed to this disaster in many ways. And yet, in the end, the world came together to defeat the Nazis and defeat this evil."
