The Kremlin urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday to negotiate “now” or lose more territory after a US proposal to end the conflict was leaked, including many concessions to Moscow. Zelensky said Thursday night that he was willing to negotiate the points of the plan, but did not specify which ones.
“The effective work of the Russian armed forces should convince Zelensky: it is better to negotiate and do it now than later,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov.
“The margin of freedom of decision is reduced for him as he loses more territories during the offensive actions of the Russian army,” he added and insisted. not having officially received the plan from the United States.
“Officiallyor we have received nothing. What’s more, we found out about some things through the press, although our contacts (with the US) do not cease, and we have never interrupted them,” he said.
Peskov again refused to comment on the content of the plan, arguing that the Kremlin opposes negotiate peace in Ukraine “with a megaphone in hand.”
Russia reported this Friday that it had taken during the last week sixteen localities in Ukrainecoinciding with the leak of the 28-point peace plan, which American generals presented on Thursday in kyiv.
Vladimir Putin responded to the plan on Thursday moving to a command post of the Západ military group (West), where the General Staff informed him of the capture of the Kupiansk bastion in the Kharkiv region.
The Ukrainian president said Thursday that Ukraine would engage “constructively, honestly and operationally” with a peace plan that the Trump administration proposed after consulting with Russia, but not Ukraine.
The 28-point agreement plan echoes old Russian demandsincluding for Ukraine to cede territory, limit the size of its army and renounce any role of a Western peacekeeping force after a ceasefire, according to officials familiar with the proposal.
Zelensky’s comments came after a meeting with US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, whom the Trump administration had sent to Ukraine to help restart peace talks. Zelensky said the American and Ukrainian teams would begin working on what he described as the “points of the plan to end the war,” without giving details about what they were.