Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky told reporters Monday that the US is currently offering Ukraine a 15-year security guarantee in the latest draft plan to end Russia’s long-running invasion.
Zelensky, answering questions via WhatsApp one day after his high-stakes meeting with President Trump at the latter’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., said he had told Trump that Kyiv would like the guarantee to be extended for up to 50 years.
“I raised this issue with the president. I told him that our war is still going on, and it has been almost 15 years,” Zelensky said.
“Therefore, we would really like the guarantees to be longer. I told him that we would very much like to consider the possibility of 30, 40, 50 years. And that would then be a historic decision by President Trump.”
According to the Ukrainian president, Trump said he would “think about” the request.
The exact form of the security guarantees have not been made public, but Zelensky said Monday they would include monitoring for violations of any cease-fire as well as some sort of “presence” by the US and European nations.
“I believe that the presence of international troops is a real security guarantee, it is a strengthening of the security guarantees that our partners are already offering us,” the Ukrainian leader said Monday.
The Post reported last week that the 20-point outline calls for a coordinated military response by the US, NATO and other European countries in the event the Russian invasion restarts.
Russia has previously said it would not accept deployment of troops from NATO countries inside Ukraine, and Moscow’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, told the Tass news agency Sunday the Kremlin would view those forces as “a legitimate target.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump were expected to speak in the near future but there was no indication the Russian leader would speak to Zelensky anytime soon.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Kyiv’s allies will meet in Paris in early January to “finalize each country’s concrete contributions” to the security guarantees. It was not immediately clear whether the US would send a representative to that meeting.
Zelensky emphasized that the guarantees were required to lift the state of martial law that has been in effect since the Russian invasion began in February 2022. Under the Ukrainian constitution, elections cannot take place under martial law — meaning the presidential and parliamentary ballots scheduled for 2024 were postponed indefinitely.
“Without security guarantees, this war has not really ended,” he said Monday. “We cannot recognize that it has ended.”
Following Sunday’s meeting, Trump said he would be willing to travel to Ukraine to try and convince its legislators to support the eastern Donbas region becoming an internationally monitored, demilitarized “free economic zone.”
“I think the land — you’re talking about — some of that land has been taken [by Russia],” said the US president, adding: “Some of that land is maybe up for grabs, but it may be taken over the next period of a number of months — and you’re better off making a deal now.”
Russia has captured most of Luhansk and about 70% of Donetsk — the two areas that make up the Donbas.
Ukraine’s post-Soviet constitution requires changes to the country’s borders to be approved via a nationwide referendum — which cannot be held until a cease-fire is in effect for 60 days, a period that the Kremlin has not indicated it is willing to wait.
With Post wires
The post Zelensky says US offering Ukraine 15-year security guarantee in latest peace plan appeared first on New York Post.
