Ukraine’s defense minister has told American officials that Kyiv is “90%” on board with President Trump’s peace framework presented in Paris this week by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the two special envoys dedicated to ending Russia’s invasion of its neighbor, a senior administration official told The Post Friday, APA reports.
The question now is whether Moscow — which has been frustrating Trump’s attempts at hammering out a full cease-fire and peace agreement — will come onboard.
“This coming week in London, we want to make a determination for a full and comprehensive cease-fire,” the official said. “The intent then is to have [discussions] with the Russians and then say, ‘OK, this is your best and final offer,’ to find out where both sides are at.
“And once we get that, then the next steps will be determined,” they added, insisting that Trump is ready to walk away from the table without Moscow’s buy-in, placing responsibility for the conflict in the hands of America’s European allies.
Meanwhile, Kyiv defense chief Rustem Umerov and his colleagues will work through their remaining reservations about the peace plan, most of which surround where the lines would be drawn in a cease-fire that freezes hostilities.
“I think part of the concern they’ve got is on the land … just what they call ‘de jure’ and ‘de facto,'” the administration official said. “‘De facto’ mean we recognize the Russians occupy this land, but we don’t say [Ukraine is] going to give it up forever. ‘De jure’ means we acknowledge that [the Russians] take in this land and we’ll never see it back again.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said his country will never recognize Russian-occupied territories as belonging to Moscow.
However, Zelenskyy has signaled willingness to freeze the fighting along the current lines, which see Russia occupying about 20% of Ukraine’s territory.
To move Russia to the table, Special Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff may offer Moscow a “carrot” of reduced sanctions — and possibly the unfreezing of seized assets, the senior official said.
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