According to insiders from Axios, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky is feeling increasing pressure from US President Donald Trump's team. The White House is currently seeking Kyiv's consent to the withdrawal of the Ukrainian Defense Forces from the Donetsk region.
Points of attention
- The demands for concessions from Ukraine, including territory issues and control over key locations, raise questions about the potential implications for the ongoing war and Ukraine's sovereignty.
- The lack of clear security assurances for Ukraine from the US adds another layer of complexity to the negotiations and underscores the challenges faced by Zelensky in balancing domestic and international pressures.
Trump seeks to implement Russian demands
Anonymous media sources claim that official Washington is putting much more pressure on Kyiv than on Moscow to end the war.
A Ukrainian official told Axios that the Trump team's approach to Ukraine deteriorated significantly after Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner held a 5-hour meeting with Putin in the Kremlin.
What's important to understand is that this happened last week.
Representatives of the US president wanted to hear a clear "yes" from Zelensky on the issue of concessions to Ukrainian territories for the sake of "peace."
"It seemed that the US was trying in various ways to convince us of Russia's desire to seize all of Donbas, and that the Americans wanted Zelensky to agree to all this during a phone conversation," said one of the insiders.
The main problem was that the new US proposal included stricter conditions than all other options.
First of all, it concerned issues of territory and control over the Zheleznodorozhny NPP. Moreover, it again lacked clear security guarantees for Ukraine from the United States.
