Ukraine has presented the U.S. with a revised 20-point framework to end its war with Russia, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday, adding that the issue of ceding territory remains a major sticking point in negotiations, Reuters reports.
Speaking to reporters in Kyiv, Zelenskiy said the U.S. is offering as a compromise to create a “free economic zone” in the Ukraine-controlled parts of the eastern Donbas which Russia has demanded that Ukraine cede.
“They see it as Ukrainian troops withdrawing from the Donetsk region, and the compromise is supposedly that Russian troops will not enter this part of Donetsk region. They do not know who will govern this territory,” he said, adding that Russia is referring to it as a “demilitarized zone.”
However, Zelenskiy said there was still no common understanding on the land issue and that Ukrainians should vote on any territorial concessions in a referendum.
Zelenskiy added that Russia’s withdrawal from slivers of land in the northeastern Kharkiv and Sumy regions, as well as the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, was part of the discussion.
The U.S. also offered potential joint governance of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the largest such facility in Europe, currently under Russian control.
