President Trump says a peace deal in Ukraine may be at hand:
A peace deal between Russia and Ukraine is “very” close, Donald Trump said.
The US president said there were a “few remaining points of disagreement” between the two countries following several rounds of negotiations.
Mr Trump hailed the “tremendous progress” that had been made towards ending the war, and said his initial 28-point peace plan had been “fine-tuned” following input from Moscow and Kyiv.
The initial 28-point “plan” was later described as Russia’s “wish list.” It isn’t clear whether it actually originated with the Trump administration, or the Russians. So what is in the new, revised proposal? We don’t really know:
Mr Zelensky also told the Coalition of the Willing on Tuesday that Ukraine was ready to move forward with the US peace “framework”.
However, French President Emmanuel Macron cast doubt on a rapid solution, stating that there is “clearly no Russian willingness” for a ceasefire or to discuss the new, more Ukraine-friendly proposal.
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Karoline Leavitt, Mr Trump’s press secretary, said a “few delicate, but not insurmountable, details” need to be worked out in future talks. Mr Zelensky’s team said he could travel to the US to finalise a deal this week.
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Russian officials remain suspicious of the deal worked up between Europe, Ukraine and the US. Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, suggested Europe had “blown its chances” of ending the war.
Is peace really at hand? Consider me skeptical. So far, Russia has adamantly refused to end the war without achieving substantially all of its goals. Is there reason to think that has changed? Not that I know of. And the military tide has been running, if anything, in Russia’s favor.
But we can hope.
