The United States has offered creating a “free economic” zone in eastern Ukraine from which Ukraine would withdraw troops under a peace deal with Russia, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday.
In comments to reporters, Zelenskiy said Ukraine has presented the US with a revised draft peace plan to end the war with Russi, adding that Trump administration wants a “full understanding” of the status of the plan by Christmas.
“Russians want the whole of the Donbas -but we, of course, do not accept this. Our position is that it is fair to stand where we stand - that is, on the contact line. Therefore, there is a discussion between these different positions, and it has not yet been decided,” Zelenskiy explained.
Ukraine’s Donbas industrial region – comprised of Donetsk and Luhansk – has been at the heart of Russia-Ukraine conflict since 2014. After Russia’s annexation of Crimea Peninsula, Russian-backed separatist movements seized parts of Donetsk and Luhansk, leading to a protracted conflict between Moscow and Kyiv. Russia’s full-fledged invasion of Ukraine in 2022 escalated the conflict, with the Kremlin making control of the Donbas a central military objective - framing it as a key goal of the invasion. Control over Donbas is important due to its infrastructure and its position as a gateway to broader regions in eastern Ukraine.
