the 28-point \u201cpeace plan\u201d<\/a> on Friday, is arguably weaker than it was before we knew of the document\u2019s existence.\n <\/p>\n\n Just last week Kyiv openly announced it had fired US-made long-range ATACMS missiles at Russia. New US sanctions on Russia\u2019s biggest oil giants took effect. And the US agreed to sell Ukraine an upgrade package for its patriot missile-defence system.\n <\/p>\n
\n Now, instead of discussing Ukraine\u2019s battlefield needs with allies, or shoring up his domestic position, after a massive corruption scandal, Zelensky is reduced, once again, to playing along with Washington\u2019s spin (he called the talks \u201csubstantive\u201d), while re-explaining what exactly he is fighting for.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cPutin wants legal recognition to what he has stolen, to break the principle of territorial integrity and sovereignty,\u201d Zelensky told the Swedish parliament in a virtual address Monday morning. \u201cThat\u2019s the main problem.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n And Europe, seemingly also blindsided by this peace plan, has failed to coalesce around an alternative. Several versions of a European counterproposal were floating around on Sunday, all of which removed (among other things) specific clauses on Ukrainian territorial concessions.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt\u2019s clear that this is exclusively designed so that Russia refuses,\u201d wrote former Russian diplomat Boris Bondarev on X Monday.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cBut there\u2019s a risk that Moscow will shift the responsibility onto the Europeans, and tell Trump how incapable they are of negotiating, and the American plan is quite acceptable (with TINY, around 90% or so, little revisions. Just cosmetic changes, Donald, don\u2019t worry.)\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone cares about Europe,\u201d said Russian MP and journalist Evgeny Popov in written comments to CNN Monday. \u201cI believe in Russia-US deal.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ukraine has managed to step back from the brink of another Trump-fuelled crisis. US Secretary of State Marco…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[2000,299,44886,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-591832","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-intl","11":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115607679522561284","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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