Ukraine prepares new peace plan as Zelensky rules out giving up land

Key Highlights

• And we don't have any moral right either."Zelensky has long maintained that any changes to Ukraine's borders would need to be authorised by a public referendum. Elsewhere, he told reporters that the initial 28-point plan proposed by the US - and rejected by Kyiv and European leaders as being too favourable to Russia - had been cut down to 20 points, according to Interfax-Ukraine news agency. He said no "pro-Ukrainian" points had been removed from the draft, though there had also been no "compromise" on the subject of territory.
• Zelensky singled out control of the eastern Donbas region and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant as being among the "most sensitive" issues. The original leaked version of the US-backed plan proposed that Ukraine hand over total control of the Donbas to Russia, despite the fact that Kremlin forces have been unable to capture it in full after almost four years of war. Energy produced at Zaporizhzhia, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, would be split between Russia and Ukraine, the draft plan said. Leaders in Kyiv and across Europe have indicated there has been progress in refining that draft in recent weeks, and have praised the Trump administration for seeking to mediate an end to the fighting. But Monday's hastily arranged Downing Street summit - attended by Zelensky, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz - was widely viewed as a show of support for Ukraine as it seeks to resist White House pressure. No 10 said there had been an agreement that the US-led talks represented a "critical moment" to ramp up support for Ukraine, and repeated calls for a "just and lasting peace...
• which includes robust security guarantees". EPAThe nature of those future security guarantees are another open question in the negotiations.
• Efforts continue to assemble an international coalition prepared to offer ongoing military support to Kyiv in the event of a peace deal, though it is not yet clear what form that would take. While the UK and France have proposed deploying international troops in Ukraine, several key defence.