Putin presented Wednesday<\/a> to US envoy Steve Witkoff.\n <\/p>\n\n They emphasized a number of points, Western officials said: that Ukraine must be involved in the talks, that a ceasefire is in place before other steps are taken, and that if Ukraine makes territorial concessions, Russia must also concede land it currently occupies.\n <\/p>\n
\n A statement afterward from the leaders of France, Italy, Germany, Poland, the United Kingdom, the European Union and Finland said the group welcomed \u201cPresident Trump\u2019s work to stop the killing in Ukraine, end the Russian Federation\u2019s war of aggression, and achieve just and lasting peace and security for Ukraine.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n But it spelled out terms of a peace plan that appeared to differ from the one Putin has put forward, in which he is seeking significant territorial concessions, according to Western officials.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cUkraine has the freedom of choice over its own destiny. Meaningful negotiations can only take place in the context of a ceasefire or reduction of hostilities. The path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine,\u201d the joint statement read. \u201cWe remain committed to the principle that international borders must not be changed by force. The current line of contact should be the starting point of negotiations.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n The statement also said any diplomatic agreement to end the war must include \u201crobust and credible security guarantees that enable Ukraine to effectively defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n The terms amounted to an attempt by European leaders to scramble a response to the rapidly unfolding diplomacy, which was set in motion this week with Witkoff\u2019s meeting in Moscow.\n <\/p>\n
\n Pressed by reporters for details on the contours of a deal, Trump indicated Friday that it could include \u201csome swapping of territories.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n The way the Europeans understand it, Putin presented a proposal that <\/strong>would require Ukraine to give over the entire eastern Donbas region, which Russia partially occupies. But the exact contours of the plan remained somewhat unclear, even after several follow-up phone conversations between the Europeans and Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Witkoff.\n <\/p>\n\n The fate of the two other regions that have been in Moscow\u2019s sights \u2014 Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, which Russia only partially occupies \u2014 wasn\u2019t clear. Nor was the status of US security guarantees going forward, the officials said.\n <\/p>\n
\n That has left European leaders, who have expressed concern about the possibility of Ukraine ceding territory, rushing to get more details on what a ceasefire would entail.\n <\/p>\n
\n To allay some of those concerns, Vance convened the hourslong meeting Saturday with UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy and European and Ukrainian officials to lay out the US\u2019 view of negotiations, as well as American officials\u2019 understanding of Russia\u2019s stance. Witkoff attended the meeting virtually.\n <\/p>\n
\n A US official told CNN that \u201csignificant progress\u201d was made, but it is still unclear whether there is European or Ukrainian buy-in heading into Friday\u2019s critical meeting.\n <\/p>\n
\n After Saturday\u2019s meeting, Zelensky said he believed the US was listening.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cOur arguments are being heard. The dangers are being taken into account,\u201d he said in an address.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Facebook Tweet Email Link A diplomatic scramble unfolded Saturday after President Donald Trump announced he would meet his…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":133304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,50,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-133303","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115002228371173607","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}