BRUTAL strikes on Kyiv are Putin’s “answer to peace”, Zelensky tells Canada’s Prime Minister ahead of crunch Mar-a-Lago talks with Trump.
Russian forces unleashed hell on the Ukrainian capital, hitting the city with almost 500 drones and 40 missiles in a 10-hour onslaught which has killed two and wounded dozens.
President Zelensky said it was a “difficult night” for Kyiv and slammed the warmongering dictator for the barbaric attack.
“This shows that Putin doesn’t want peace,” he told Canadian PM Mark Carney during his visit to Halifax, Nova Scotia today.
“We want peace. He’s a man of war.”
Zelensky is now heading to Florida to meet Trump at his lavish 58-bedroom Palm Beach resort to discuss the security guarantees for Ukraine and territorial issues in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.
Following the overnight barrage, Mad Vlad accused Ukraine and its European backers of trying to “torpedo” a previous US-brokered plan to stop the fighting.
Adding to pressure on the battlefield, Russia also announced it had captured two more towns in eastern Ukraine – Myrnograd and Guliaipole.
“If the authorities in Kyiv don’t want to settle this business peacefully, we’ll resolve all the problems before us by military means,” Putin said.
Zelensky slammed Moscow for rejecting the proposed Christmas ceasefire and instead “escalating the brutality of missile and drone attacks”.
“This is a clear signal of how they really view diplomacy there. So far, it’s not taken seriously enough,” he said on social media.
Sunday’s meeting in Florida is to focus on a new, 20-point plan that would freeze the war on its current front line.
It could require Ukraine to pull back troops from the east, allowing the creation of demilitarised buffer zones, according to details revealed by Zelensky this week.
An updated 20-point peace draft in the US-driven campaign to clinch a peace plan is 90 per cent complete, Zelensky told journalists in Kyiv.
The latest version of the peace plan differs from the original 28-point peace plan that was proposed by Washington – and heavily favoured Moscow.
Zelensky said a security guarantee agreement between Ukraine and the US was almost ready – a key element after guarantees in earlier post-Soviet years proved meaningless.
“A lot can be decided before the New Year,” Zelensky posted on social media.
Trump said the US was the driving force behind the process.
“He doesn’t have anything until I approve it,” Trump told Politico.
“So we’ll see what he’s got.”
Red lines
Moscow demands that Ukraine withdraw from the areas of the eastern region of Donetsk that Russian troops have failed to occupy in their drive to secure all of the Donbas, which also includes the Luhansk region.
Kyiv wants the fighting halted at the current lines.
On Christmas Eve, Zelensky shared details of the updated 20-point plan with journalists in a briefing.
He said he would be willing to withdraw troops from the country’s eastern industrial heartland if Moscow also pulls back – and the area becomes a demilitarised zone monitored by international forces.
Under a US compromise, a free economic zone would be set up if Ukraine leaves parts of the Donetsk region, though details have yet to be worked out.
Meanwhile, Zelensky told Axios the US had offered a 15-year deal on security guarantees, subject to renewal.
But Kyiv wanted a longer agreement with legally binding provisions to guard against further Russian aggression.
Trump said he believed Sunday’s meeting would go well. He also said he expected to speak with Putin “soon, as much as I want”.
In addition to territory, a critical point is control of Europe‘s largest nuclear power station, Zaporizhzhia, which was seized by Russia in the opening weeks of the war.
Axios quoted Zelensky as saying that if he is not able to push the U.S. to back Ukraine’s “strong” position on the land issue, he was willing to put the 20-point plan to a referendum – as long as Russia agrees to a 60-day ceasefire to allow Ukraine to prepare for and hold the vote.
He said he wanted more pressure applied to Russia.
Kyiv said the latest peace draft, which was agreed during marathon talks with Washington, is now under Moscow’s review.
Russia has given no indication that it will agree to any kind of withdrawal from the land it has seized.
In fact, Moscow has insisted that Ukraine relinquish the remaining territory it still holds in the Donbas, an ultimatum that Ukraine has rejected.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Kyiv’s version of the 20-point plan differed from what Russia had been discussing with the US, according to Interfax-Russia news agency.
Though he expressed optimism that matters had reached a “turning point” in the search for a settlement.
Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy aide, spoke with members of the Trump administration after Moscow received US proposals about a possible peace deal, the Kremlin said on Friday.
It did not disclose how Moscow had viewed the documents.
But Putin has privately cast doubt on the framework, it is understood.
Speaking behind closed doors to senior businessmen, he reiterated Russia’s claim to the whole of the Donbas, according to Kommersant.
