{"id":201746,"date":"2025-11-26T19:57:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T19:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/201746\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T19:57:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T19:57:10","slug":"on-the-streets-of-kyiv-amid-us-peace-plan-talks-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/201746\/","title":{"rendered":"On the streets of Kyiv amid US peace plan talks \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ukrainian officials remain determinedly upbeat in comments on the new US push to end the war with Russia<\/a>, but people in Kyiv fear that a deal would strongly favour Moscow, impose unacceptable terms on Ukraine and fail to prevent any future Kremlin aggression.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a total betrayal of Ukraine\u2019s interests by the United States<\/a>,\u201d Lyudmyla, who lives in central Kyiv, says of a 28-point plan presented last week by Washington, which Ukraine and many European states viewed as little more than a list of Russian demands.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the war should end but not at any price. [Vladimir] Putin<\/a> should not get everything he wants,\u201d she adds, referring to Russia\u2019s autocratic leader of 25 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica is not helping Ukraine now \u2013 it is working in the interests of Russia. Maybe we will have to make concessions, but it depends what they are. We cannot accept humiliation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kyiv and European capitals say the 28-point plan was heavily revised during talks in Geneva on Sunday to remove some of Russia\u2019s most onerous conditions \u2013 but the Kremlin continues to back the original proposals and warns that it will not accept significant changes.<\/p>\n

\""Lyudmyla":“Lyudmyla”: Lyudmyla, who lives in central Kyiv, describes a peace plan presented by the US last week as a “total betrayal of Ukraine’s interests”. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin \""Alex":“Alex”: Kyiv resident Alex says the current talks on a peace deal for Ukraine are unlikely to end the war with Russia for good. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin <\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe a positive outcome is theoretically possible. But I think it\u2019s more likely to end up with another ceasefire rather than a definitive settlement. With this formula, the war will be frozen for a while and then restart,\u201d says Alex, another resident of Kyiv.<\/p>\n

He believes US president Donald Trump<\/a> \u2013 who claims that a peace deal is \u201cvery close\u201d and has ordered his Kremlin-friendly envoy Steve Witkoff to visit Russia for talks next week \u2013 is \u201cbasically working for himself: Trump loves Trump\u201d. <\/p>\n

Alex thinks it is impossible to say whether Ukraine should make concessions to end the war \u2013 such as abandoning territory still held in the eastern Donetsk region, accepting de facto Russian control of about 20 per cent of the country, or abandoning hope of joining Nato \u2013 without seeing the full plan and all its conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, Ukraine can\u2019t win without military help,\u201d he says, \u201cand as far I know there is a threat that [the US] might stop financing us and giving us weapons\u201d.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Daniel McLaughlin in Ukraine: City waits for a peace deal, or for Russian troopsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\""Valeriya":“Valeriya”: Valeriya Haiduchok says Ukrainians are used to “hoping for the best but being ready for the worst.” Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin <\/p>\n

Valeriya Haiduchok, who helps soldiers find apartments in Kyiv, says she does not follow politics closely \u201cbecause it makes me really pissed off\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels like [a deal] is getting closer but the pressure is really high. It\u2019s so painful because I\u2019m working with soldiers and I know they are dying,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess we\u2019ve been living in this condition for nearly four years \u2013 hope for the best but be ready for the worst,\u201d she adds, hours after another wave of Russian missile and drone strikes on Kyiv killed at least seven civilians and wounded 20.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been fighting for our history and everything. If they want to make Russian the second official language here and change our politics … then it\u2019s awful. It\u2019s better to keep fighting than let them take this away from us.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Daniel McLaughlin in Ukraine: Civilians flee as danger zone spreadsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\""Vasyl":“Vasyl”: Vasyl Filiak says a lasting peace deal is impossible without guarantees from the West that Russia will not invade Ukraine again. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin <\/p>\n

Vasyl Filiak, from the city of Vinnytsia in central Ukraine, suspects Trump is \u201cworking for himself, for the United States, for money \u2013 he wants to get as much out of this as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cRussia won\u2019t abide by this plan. It won\u2019t stop and the war will continue,\u201d he says. \u201cPerhaps we could make concessions but where are the guarantees that the war won\u2019t restart? This is not our first war with Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anastasiya, who is visiting Kyiv from the eastern city of Dnipro, does not expect the talks to end with a positive outcome for Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really trust the authorities \u2013 neither the Ukrainian nor the American,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ll have to make some concessions. We are running out of people. Some territory is already lost, but we are still alive and want to keep living, and we don\u2019t want all our fathers and husbands to go to war,\u201d says her friend Viktoriya.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people have already lost their territory and their relatives, but those of us who still have them don\u2019t want the same to happen to us. So it would be better to give up some territory and stay alive, and keep our loved ones close to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Daniel McLaughlin in Ukraine: Great Meadow springs back to life after dam’s destructionOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ukrainian officials remain determinedly upbeat in comments on the new US push to end the war with Russia,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,356,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,2264,2263,2267,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-201746","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-latest-news","15":"tag-latestnews","16":"tag-main-news","17":"tag-mainnews","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-top-stories","20":"tag-topstories","21":"tag-ukraine-crisis","22":"tag-vladimir-putin","23":"tag-volodymyr-zelenskiy","24":"tag-world","25":"tag-world-news","26":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115617768792494930","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}