Extract from ABC News
Major sticking points remain for Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin as they attempt to reach a peace deal in Ukraine. (Reuters)
A US-led peace proposal to stop Russia's war in Ukraine has generated a flurry of diplomatic activity.
Kyiv, Moscow, Abu Dhabi and Geneva have all hosted meetings between key American, Russian and Ukrainian officials, who have been hashing out the details of a peace plan.
But despite many meetings, Russia's war in Ukraine continues.
Here's what we know about the state of the peace process.
What is Putin saying about peace?
Russian President Vladimir Putin met with US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in Moscow on Tuesday.
The meeting reportedly ended in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia had accepted some US proposals aimed at ending the war, but had rejected others, adding "compromises have not yet been found".
"Work is currently being carried out at a working expert level," Mr Peskov said.
Vladimir Putin, Kirill Dmitriev and Yuri Ushakov at Tuesday's meeting with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner at the Kremlin in Moscow. (Reuters/Sputnik: Kristina Kormilitsyna)
"It is at the expert level that certain results should be achieved that will then become the basis for contacts at the highest level."
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said negotiators from Kyiv would meet with European leaders in Brussels on Wednesday to discuss the outcome of the Kremlin meeting.
He added that senior negotiator Rustem Umerov and army chief Andrii Hnatov would then prepare for meetings with US envoys in Washington.
"This is our ongoing coordination with partners, and we ensure that the negotiation process is fully active," he said.
What is the new peace proposal being discussed?
A leaked 28-point plan released earlier this month alarmed Ukraine and its European allies.
Retired US Army Lieutenant General Ben Hodges said it included "maximalist demands" made by Russia.
It blocked Ukraine from joining NATO, gave a fifth of Ukrainian territory to Moscow and limited the size of Kyiv's army.
Russia attacked a Ukrainian apartment building in Kramatorsk this week as peace negotiations continued. (Reuters: Anatolii Stepanov)
"I think the Trump administration never ever intended to help Ukraine. This has been, all along, a big business transaction," Mr Hodges told the ABC.
Western leaders have been worried that Vladimir Putin should be forced to compromise on Russian demands after invading Ukraine.
The Wall Street Journal reported that US officials viewed securing business deals between the US, Russia and Ukraine as key to peace negotiations.
"Russia has so many vast resources, vast expanses of land," Mr Witkoff told the WSJ last week.
"If we do all that, and everybody's prospering and they're all a part of it, and there's upside for everybody, that's going to naturally be a bulwark against future conflicts there. Because everybody's thriving," he added.
Head of foreign policy at the New Eurasian Strategies Centre in London, John Lough, said that was "pie-in-the-sky" thinking and showed a "complete misunderstanding about Putin's goals".
"It's unclear that US companies are really going to want to risk capital in this environment, where property rights are so adversely impacted by a [Russian] regime of this kind," he said.
"Trump, Witkoff and Kushner, they're property developers. They see this war through the prism of territory and think that some sort of agreement around division of new dividing lines in that territory are going to be a solution to the problem.
"They don't understand that it's a fundamentally much bigger problem about Russia's perception of its place in Europe and the security environment that should prevail. In other words, one that should be advantageous to Russia."
What are the sticking points?
After the 28-point plan was leaked, European allies subsequently devised an "updated and refined peace framework" with Ukraine at talks in Geneva.
The details have not been made public.
Both Mr Hodges and Mr Lough agreed that the key sticking points included:
- The sovereignty of Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia
- Limits on the size of the Ukrainian army
- Ukraine's ability to join NATO
"We're a very long way away from a deal because there is an enormous gulf here between the two sides," Mr Lough said.
He said Ukraine might be tempted to give up more territory it has lost if its allies provided a security guarantee.
"As things stand, the US doesn't want to be a backstop for any guarantee, and the Europeans don't want to provide the guarantee without a backstop," he said.
"So my expectation is that the war will continue."
What role is Europe playing?
European leaders continue to pressure Moscow to compromise further and have moved to bolster Kyiv's war effort to put Ukraine in the best possible position.
On Wednesday, local time, the European Commission put forward two proposals to use and borrow Russian bank assets seized to help cover Ukraine's finance needs into 2026 and 2027.
The move would unlock 90 billion euros ($159 billion) to help Ukraine cover its struggling military and basic services against Russia's war.
The five legal proposals included a "reparations loan" based on Russian assets largely held in Belgium and a prohibition on transferring these immobilised assets back to Russia.
Ben Hodges said it was a sign that Europe was prepared to shoulder more of the burden during the Trump era.
"The Europeans have finally woken up to the reality that president Trump, the US administration, is not going to come to their rescue," he said.
"Nobody believes that Russia will live up to any agreement. The Europeans know that this will just delay for a year or two before Russia transitions from grey zone operations to more deliberate operations against European countries, especially if Ukraine fails.
"They know that there will be millions more Ukrainian refugees going into Central and Western Europe if this happens. So I think that they're playing catch-up now."
ABC/wires
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