Ukrainian servicemen take cover from a Russian combat drone in a building damaged by a military strike in the frontline town of Kostiantynivka, Donetsk, Dec. 7.Anatolii Stepanov/Reuters
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday that he spoke with U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner for about an hour on how to end the war.
“It was a really good conversation: many details, good ideas, that we discussed. There are some new ideas on how to bring the real peace closer, and it concerns formats, meetings, and, certainly, the timeline,” Zelensky said on the Telegram app.
Trump has been pushing for a deal to end the almost four-year-long war, and in recent weeks peace efforts led by Witkoff and Kushner have been slowly inching forward. Earlier this week, Zelensky presented a 20-point draft peace plan that he described as the main framework for ending the war.
The draft represented a slimmed-down version of an original 28-point plan the U.S. previously discussed with the Russian side that was widely seen as mainly benefiting Moscow as it demanded Kyiv cede territory and put curbs on its army. However, key territorial questions remain unresolved in the new 20-point draft, Zelensky said, adding that a meeting with Trump would be required to solve the most sensitive issues.
Ukraine open to creating demilitarized zone in Donbas, Zelensky says
On Wednesday, Zelensky said he would be willing to withdraw troops from the country’s eastern industrial heartland if Moscow also pulls back and the area becomes a demilitarized zone monitored by international forces.
The proposal offered another potential compromise on control of the Donbas region, which has been a major sticking point in peace negotiations.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that Moscow was analyzing the documents on ending the war which were brought to Moscow by Russia’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev from the United States. The White House did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Zelensky said that Ukraine’s top negotiator Rustem Umerov planned to have one more conversation with the U.S. negotiators later in the day. “We are truly working 24/7 to bring closer the end of this brutal Russian war against Ukraine and to ensure that all documents and steps are realistic, effective, and reliable,” he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky earlier this week presented a 20-point draft peace plan that he described as the main framework for ending the Russia-Ukraine war.Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Earlier on Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Russia sees slow but steady progress in peace talks with the United States on Ukraine.
Zakharova added that Western European powers were trying to torpedo the progress and suggested that the United States counter such moves.
Ukraine targets oil and gas facilities
Ukraine launched British Storm Shadow missiles and its domestically produced long-range drones to hit several Russian oil and gas facilities, Ukrainian military and security officials said on Thursday.
Ukraine has previously used the British-made missiles to attack Russian industrial targets that it says help Moscow’s war.
The Ukrainian General Staff said that the air force used Storm Shadow cruise missiles to strike the Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery in Russia’s Rostov region.
It said the refinery was one of the biggest oil product suppliers in southern Russia and was supplying diesel and jet fuel to the Russian troops fighting in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s SBU security service said that the locally made long-range drones hit oil product tanks in the Russian port of Temryuk in the Krasnodar region and a gas processing plant in Orenburg in southwestern Russia.
The Orenburg gas processing plant, the largest facility of its kind in the world, is located about 1,400 kilometres from the Ukrainian border.
In the Krasnodar region, Russian regional authorities said that two oil product tanks caught fire at the southern port of Temryuk after the drone attack.
As Russia’s war in Ukraine approaches its four-year mark and diplomatic efforts to end it have so far failed to produce any tangible results, both Kyiv and Moscow have stepped up their drone and missile attacks on energy facilities. Kyiv has increased its strikes on Russia’s oil refineries and other energy infrastructure since August as it seeks to cut Moscow’s oil revenues, a key source of funding for its war effort. The Ukrainian General Staff also said that Ukrainian troops hit a military airfield in the Russian city of Maikop in the republic of Adygea in the North Caucasus region.
With reports from The Associated Press