Seoul Gazette - US still pushing big territorial concessions from Ukraine: Zelensky

Washington wants only Ukraine to withdraw its troops from parts of the Donetsk region, not Russia, where a demilitarised "free economic zone" as a buffer between the two armies would be installed, Zelensky told reporters, including from AFP.

Under the latest US plan, Moscow would also stay where it is in the south of the country, but pull some of its troops out of Ukrainian regions that Russian President Vladimir Putin has not claimed to have annexed in the north.

Zelensky's remarks appear to show little has changed in Washington's core position on how the conflict should end since it sent a 28-point plan to Kyiv and Moscow last month that heavily favoured Russia.

Ukraine has been revising that and this week sent a 20-point counter-proposal to Washington, the full details of which have not been published.

"We have two key points of disagreement: the territories of Donetsk and everything related to them, and the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. These are the two topics we continue to discuss," Zelensky told reporters at a briefing.

"They see Ukrainian forces leaving the territory of Donetsk region, and the supposed compromise is that Russian forces do not enter this territory... which they already call a 'free economic zone'," Zelensky said about the US plan.

Zelensky has long said he has no "constitutional" or "moral" right to cede Ukrainian land, and said his citizens should have the final say on the issue of territory.

"I believe that the people of Ukraine will answer this question. Whether through elections or a referendum, there must be a position from the people of Ukraine," he said.

- 'Great many questions' -

Zelensky also pushed back against the idea of a unilateral Ukrainian withdrawal in the Donetsk region.

"Why doesn't the other side of the war pull back the same distance in the other direction?" he said, adding there were "a great many questions" still unresolved.

Under the US plan, Russia would relinquish territory it has captured in the Kharkiv, Sumy and Dnipropetrovsk regions -- three areas over which Moscow has not made a formal territorial claim.

In 2022, Russia claimed to formally annex the Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk and Zaporizhzhia regions, despite not having full control over them.

Ukraine's troops still hold around one-fifth of the Donetsk region, according to AFP's analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

Much of eastern and southern Ukraine has been decimated by fighting.

Tens of thousands have been killed and millions forced to flee their homes.

Russia, which has the numerical advantage in manpower and weapons, has been grinding forward on the battlefield.

It claimed Thursday to have captured the town of Siversk in the Donetsk region with its army advancing at its fastest pace in a year, according to AFP's analysis.

Ukraine's European allies were on Thursday holding a video conference to discuss the latest proposals.

Trump has largely sought to sideline them from the process, preferring to deal directly with Moscow and Kyiv in shuttle diplomacy led by his envoy Steve Witkoff and, lately, his son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Zelensky said that although there was no strict deadline to finalise an agreement, Washington wanted to have the contours of a deal ready by Christmas.

"There were no specific, ultimatum-style date constraints," he said, adding that the United States "genuinely wanted, and perhaps still wants, to have a full understanding by Christmas of where we are with this agreement."

He also said that despite the diplomatic scramble, he saw no indication Russia wanted to halt its invasion.

"In my view, they need a pause. They need it, but they're not taking it. I don't see any sign that they want to end the war," Zelensky said.

G.Seong--SG