Zelensky: "The US wants to withdraw from Donbass; the Ukrainian people will decide in a referendum."

The diplomatic ping-pong continues as tensions rise. Volodymyr Zelensky, meeting with journalists in Kiev, confirmed that the peace talks are primarily stalled over the fate of Donbass, Donetsk in particular .

The US would like Ukrainian forces to withdraw and for that battered patch of land—where the fortifications are located—to become a "free economic zone." However, Moscow is not being asked to do the same in the part it currently occupies. A potentially fatal imbalance.

Zelensky is under immense pressure from the US, and so, on the territorial issue, he evokes the ballot box: "The people will decide, through elections or a referendum." The other issue, Zelensky said, is the fate of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant , the largest in Europe and crucial to Ukraine's economic development. It is currently occupied by the Russians, and the US peace plan calls for maintaining the current positions in the Zaporizhzhia region.

The acceleration is increasingly evident, even if a compromise must be found between the two plans, the Russian-American one and the Euro-Ukrainian one. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, at a press conference in Berlin with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, specified that, when he spoke to the American president on the phone with his counterparts from Paris and London, the White House had not yet received the latest version of the plan, which reflects the Euro-Ukrainian position. It includes the possibility of "territorial concessions" that Ukraine "could accept."

Trump , the White House explains, says he is frustrated with Moscow and Kiev: "He no longer wants talk, but action. He's fed up with meetings just for the sake of meetings." Meanwhile, officials from Ukraine, the US, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom will meet in Paris on Saturday, Axios reports, to take yet another stock of the situation.

The economic aspect will be the subject of a separate document—Zelensky recently discussed it with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent—as will security guarantees. Washington submitted a document with the guarantees this evening, and Kiev will supplement it with its own proposals in the coming days .

(Unioneonline)