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A renewed US push to end the war between Russia and Ukraine is gathering momentum, although some of the key issues remain unresolved, officials said Tuesday (November 25).
The update was issued hours after Russia launched a wave of overnight attacks on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, with at least seven people killed in strikes that hit city buildings and energy infrastructure. A Ukrainian attack on southern Russia killed three people and damaged homes, authorities said.
“Over the past week, the United States
has made tremendous progress towards a peace deal by bringing both Ukraine and Russia to the table,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a post on X.
“There are a few delicate, but not insurmountable, details that must be sorted out and will require further talks between Ukraine, Russia, and the United States.”
President Donald Trump’s plan for ending the nearly four-year war emerged last week. It heavily favoured Russia, prompting Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to quickly engage with American negotiators.
European leaders, fearing for their own future amid Russian aggression but apparently sidelined by Trump in drawing up the proposals, scrambled to steer the negotiations toward accommodating their concerns. Senior US and Ukrainian officials said progress was made at talks in Geneva held on Sunday toward ending the war.
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French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday that peace efforts are gathering momentum and “are clearly at a crucial juncture." “Negotiations are getting a new impetus. And we should seize this momentum,” he said during at a video conference meeting of countries, led by France and the U.K., that could help police any ceasefire with Russia.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said of the talks: “I do think we are moving in a positive direction and indications today that in large part the majority of the text, (Zelenskyy) is indicating, can be accepted.”
Latest phase of talks
US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll met with Russian officials for several hours in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on Tuesday, a US official told The Associated Press. Driscoll, who became part of the American negotiating team less than two weeks ago, is heading up the latest phase of talks involving the terms of a possible peace settlement with Russia.
The US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations, declined to give details on how long the negotiations would last or what topics were being discussed, but noted that the Ukrainians were aware of the meeting and all sides have indicated they wanted to reach a deal to halt the fighting as quickly as possible.
Oleksandr Bevz, one of the Ukrainian delegates at the Geneva talks, said that the number of points in the proposed settlement was reduced, but he denied reports that the 28-point U.S. peace plan now consisted of 19 points.
"(The document) is going to continue to change. We can confirm that it was reduced to take out points not relating to Ukraine, to exclude duplicates and for editing purposes,” Bevz told the AP, adding that some points relating solely to relations between Russia and the U.S. were excluded.
Long road to peace
Zelenskyy said late Monday that “the list of necessary steps to end the war can become workable." He said that he planned to discuss “sensitive” outstanding issues with Trump.
Also Read: Russia strikes Ukraine's capital despite Donald Trump's peace push
Rustem Umerov, a senior adviser to Zelenskyy, posted on X on Tuesday that Zelenskyy hoped to finalise a deal with Trump “at the earliest suitable date in November.”
Russian officials have been reserved in their comments on the peace plan. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday that Moscow is in touch with U.S. officials about peace efforts.
“We expect them to provide us with a version they consider an interim one in terms of completing the phase of coordinating this text with the Europeans and the Ukrainians,” Lavrov said. European leaders have cautioned that the road to peace will be long.
‘Glass rained down’
Russia fired 22 missiles of various types and more than 460 drones at Ukraine overnight, Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram. The strikes knocked out water, electricity and heat in parts of Kyiv. Images showed a large fire spreading in a nine-story residential building in Kyiv’s eastern Dniprovskyi district.
Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said 20 people were wounded in Kyiv. The Russian Defense Ministry said that it targeted military-industrial facilities and energy assets. The strikes were a response to Ukrainian attacks on civilian objects in Russia, the ministry said.
Liubov Petrivna, a 90-year-old resident of a damaged building in the Dniprovskyi district, told the AP that “absolutely everything” in her apartment was shattered by the strike and “glass rained down” on her.
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Petrivna said that she didn’t believe in the peace plan now under discussion. “No one will ever do anything about it,” she said. Russian President Vladimir Putin “won’t stop until he finishes us off.”
Large Ukrainian drone attack
The overnight Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s southern region of Krasnodar was “one of the longest and most massive” and wounded six people, Gov. Veniamin Kondratyev said. Russian air defenses destroyed 249 Ukrainian drones overnight above various Russian regions and the occupied Crimean Peninsula, the Russian Defense Ministry said Tuesday.
Ukraine said that its drones and missiles struck an aviation repair plant and a drone production facility, as well as an oil refinery and an oil terminal. It was the fourth-largest Ukrainian drone attack on Russia since the start of the war on Feb. 24, 2022, according to an AP tally.
