Zelensky appeals for European support for new peace deal

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1. ***The Telegraph reports:***

   Volodymyr Zelensky is attempting to build European support for a new Ukraine peace deal, with Donald Trump’s plan on the verge of collapse.

   The Ukrainian president met [Pope Leo XIV](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/05/18/pope/) at Castel Gandolfo, the Pontiff’s hilltop summer residence on Tuesday. He will later meet Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, before sharing his revised peace plan with the US.

   Mr Zelensky’s Italian pit-stop comes after he held [an emergency summit at Downing Street](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/12/08/ukraine-russia-war-latest-starmer-zelensky-trump-putin/) on Monday with the leaders of France, Germany and Britain, to hash out his counter-proposal.

   Mr Trump’s plan was seen as widely favourable to Russia and required Mr Zelensky to cede vast swathes of territory to Russia, which remains a red line for the Ukrainian leader.

   The US president is said to have grown frustrated with the talks and to be pushing Mr Zelensky to move fast, while the Europeans are advising caution and patience.

   A Ukrainian official said the US offer worsened for Kyiv after Mr Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, held a five-hour meeting with Vladimir Putin last week in the Kremlin.

   The official told Axios that Mr Witkoff and Mr Kushner seemed to want a clear “yes” from Mr Zelensky when they discussed the plan with him in a two-hour call on Saturday.

   ”It felt like the US was trying to sell us in different ways the Russian desire to take the whole of Donbas and that the Americans wanted Zelensky to accept all of it in the phone call,” the Ukrainian official said.

   The terms also became harsher on territory and control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after the Moscow meeting, the official said.

   Mr Zelensky told reporters on Monday that he would not give up land. “We have no right to under the law – under the law of Ukraine, under our constitution, or under international law, to be honest. And we also have no moral right.”

   “That is what we are fighting for”, he added.

   **Read more:** [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/12/09/zelensky-appeals-for-european-support-for-new-peace-deal/](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/12/09/zelensky-appeals-for-european-support-for-new-peace-deal/)

2. Zelenskyy is trying to decide with Europe what’s a real deal looks like while Russia is going nowhere with their fantasy. The US too dumb to maintain their negotiation leverage, which is being deteriorated by withdrawing their military support for Ukraine further and further.

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