MOSCOW, November 23. /TASS/. The plan for the peaceful settlement of the conflict the Ukrainian delegation is discussing with US and European representatives in Geneva will soon be finalized, Secretary of Ukraine’s Security and Defense Council Rustem Umerov said.
"Our current proposals while still not finalized include many Ukrainian priorities. We appreciate our American partners working closely with us to understand our concerns to reach this critical point and we expect to make more progress today," he wrote on his Telegram channel, adding that Ukraine expects further progress during today’s talks.
Vladimir Zelensky said earlier in the day that talks between the Ukrainian delegation and European partners and the US delegation began in Switzerland to discuss steps toward ending the conflict. Reuters reported earlier, citing an unnamed US official, that Washington and Kiev’s negotiating teams will meet in Geneva to agree the last details of the US peace plan for Ukraine.
EU leaders on Saturday expressed their disagreement with a range of provisions of Washington’s peace plan and called for amending it. According to Germany’s Bild newspaper, the German government is concerned over the US initiative and began working on diplomatic countermeasures.
According to the US-proposed plan, which was leaked to the Western media, the United States and other countries will have to recognize Russia’s sovereignty over Crimea, Donbass and other territories that Ukraine will have to give up. In return, Kiev will receive American and European security guarantees. A demilitarized zone will be created, and Ukrainian troops will be withdrawn from areas therein.
The Axios portal quoted an American official as saying that the line of contact between the nations in the Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions will be frozen, and Russia will have to return some areas to Ukraine. The Ukrainian army will be significantly reduced and will lose long-range weapons. The deployment of foreign troops will be banned, and Russian will have to become an official state language. Bloomberg reported that the new US plan also provides for the lifting of sanctions against Russia.