Ukraine sees a window of opportunity through the end of next summer for the U.S. to mediate in order to end the war with Russia and has drafted a set of proposals inwith American and European officials, which will be presented in Moscow, said the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Among these ideas, as Zelenskyy pointed out while speaking to reporters, are the declaration of a ceasefire and a U.S. proposal —which has been discussed in the past—to create a free economic zone in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, to be administered by a third party.
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“It includes one of the ideas for a ceasefire—that is the main point. The second point concerns what the Americans proposed regarding a free economic zone,” he added.
However, the Kremlin questioned the feasibility of the U.S. proposal for Donbas, emphasizing that this region of Ukraine—comprising the Donetsk and Luhansk regions—is officially part of Russia and, consequently, cannot be administered by a third party.
Zelenskyy noted that he believes there is a window of opportunity to end the war with Russia, which begins with the G20 summit in the U.S. in December and extends through the summer of 2027, given that the campaign for the 2028 U.S. presidential election will begin shortly thereafter.
The Ukrainian president had stated earlier this month that Ukraine had submitted proposals for ending the war to American negotiators, without providing further details.
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U.S.-led negotiations to end the war collapsed earlier this year, after Ukraine rejected Russia’s demand to cede more territory and after the U.S.-Iran war broke out, which has almost entirely monopolized Washington’s attention.
The last time U.S. negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Whitecoff visited Moscow was in January, and they have never traveled to Ukraine.
Zelenskyy explained that the third point of the Ukrainian proposal concerns the role that the EU and NATO will play and “what Ukraine is willing to do to achieve this.” He did not provide further details.
“These three ideas I mentioned are not exclusively Ukrainian,” he emphasized, adding that they were developed jointly with the Americans and the Europeans, while some are based on previous discussions that American negotiators had with Ukraine and Russia.
Source: APE
