Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said this Friday, December 26, that he would soon meet his American counterpart Donald Trump, two days after revealing the new version of the American plan aimed at ending the war between Russia and Ukraine, negotiated for weeks between Washington and Kiev. For its part, Moscow declined to comment on details, but Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said progress toward ending the war was “slow but steady.”
Information to remember
⇒ Volodymyr Zelensky will soon meet Donald Trump
⇒ Vladimir Putin could be open to a territory exchange in Ukraine
⇒ Russian drones damage three boats in southern Ukraine
Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump will meet “in the near future”
“We have agreed on a high-level meeting with President Trump in the near future. Many things can be decided before the New Year,” Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media this Friday.
According to Axios journalist Barak Ravid, citing a Ukrainian official, Donald Trump will meet with the Ukrainian president on Sunday at Mar-a-Lago, Florida.
The Ukrainian president revealed on Wednesday the new version of the American plan aimed at ending the war between Russia and Ukraine, negotiated for weeks between Washington and kyiv. This text provides for a freezing of the front at current lines while offering no immediate solution on the thorny issue of the territories occupied by Russia, which represent more than 19% of Ukraine.
Unlike the original version of this document, written by the Americans, the new version leaves aside two major demands from Moscow: a withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the Donbass territories still under their control and a legally binding commitment from kyiv not to join NATO. For this reason, Moscow’s agreement to this new version seems unlikely, although Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov indicated that Moscow was “formulating its position” and declined to comment on the details.
Vladimir Putin may be open to a territory swap in Ukraine, reports Kommersant
Vladimir Putin told some of Russia’s top businessmen that he might agree to trade some of the territory his forces control in Ukraine, but that he wanted all of Donbas, the Russian newspaper reported Kommersant. “Vladimir Putin said that the Russian side was still ready to make the concessions it made in Anchorage. In other words, that ‘Donbass is ours,'” the media outlet writes.
The head of the Kremlin met his American counterpart Donald Trump in August in Anchorage, Alaska, for the first USA-Russia summit since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
No call planned “for the moment” between Emmanuel Macron and Vladimir Putin, according to the Elysée
There has been no recent exchange between Emmanuel Macron and Vladimir Putin and there is no planned interview “for the moment”, the Elysée announced this Friday while Paris and Moscow, whose relations are at their lowest, recently publicly expressed their interest in direct contact at the summit. “There has been no exchange” between the French and Russian presidents, “there is currently no plan for a call” between them and “there is no plan for Emmanuel Macron to travel to Moscow,” said the Elysée.
Last week, the Kremlin announced that Vladimir Putin was ready to speak to Emmanuel Macron, responding to statements to this effect from the French president. The Elysée deemed this “welcome” and said that its teams would advise “in the coming days on the best way to proceed”, insisting that this must be done “in complete transparency” with kyiv and European partners.
Russian drones damage three boats in southern Ukraine
Russian drones damaged three ships overnight from Thursday to Friday at ports in the Odessa and Mykolaiv regions of southern Ukraine, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister said. These attacks did not cause any casualties but they led to power cuts and also damaged civilian warehouses in the Odessa region, added Oleksiy Kouleba on Telegram messaging.
The Ukrainian authorities accuse Russia, which is increasing air attacks in the Odessa region, of wanting to deprive Ukraine of access to the Black Sea. Oleksiy Kouleba also reported a Russian drone attack against the Kovel station, in the north-west of Ukraine, around sixty kilometers from the border with Poland. “A locomotive and a freight wagon were damaged,” he said.
