Ukraine says heavy lifting on US peace proposal lies ahead
Published in News & Features
Ukraine signaled that key sticking points remained in peace talks with the U.S. after senior officials hailed progress in winning more favorable terms for Kyiv from a proposal backed by Donald Trump.
Any discussions involving territorial issues, which are at the crux of a potential settlement, will likely be tackled at the meeting between the Ukrainian and U.S. presidents, Ihor Brusylo, the deputy chief of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, told Bloomberg Television in an interview Monday.
The country’s NATO membership wasn’t off the table — and “is one of the provisions that can be a security guarantee for Ukraine,” he said. The initial draft of the 28-point peace plan put forward last week called for Kyiv to give up on its ambitions to join the military alliance, while ceding its eastern Donbas regions, including territory Russia doesn’t yet control.
A day after assailing the Ukrainian leadership for failing to show gratitude, Trump signaled in a Truth Social post Monday that talks may be making progress. “Don’t believe it until you see it, but something good just may be happening,” he posted.
Zelenskyy said Monday that talks had reached a “critical moment” as he signaled that discussions over territory and sovereignty would prove difficult.
“Putin wants legal recognition of what he has stolen – to break the principles of territorial integrity and sovereignty – and this is the main problem,” the Ukrainian leader said in a speech distributed by his office.
Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy’s powerful chief of staff, said Ukrainian and U.S. negotiators prepared an “updated and refined framework document on peace.” Discussions on Sunday in Geneva demonstrated significant progress in reconciling positions and clearly identifying next steps, he said in a post on Telegram.
Both sides described the talks as making progress toward a deal after the plan presented last week kicked off a flurry of diplomatic wrangling over the weekend. Any agreement would require sign-off by Zelenskyy, Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“This is not yet the end,” Brusylo said on Monday. “The main thing is in the details.”
Ukraine has to see “that the other party accepts all the positions that our delegation presented to them,” he said. “We cannot just cherry pick or pluck some of the provisions and say this is OK for us and this not OK for us.”
Negotiations will continue at the working level in the coming days, Brusylo said. Trump’s proposed Nov. 27 deadline to secure Ukraine’s support for the plan isn’t set in stone and could drift into the following week, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said after the meeting in Switzerland.
Ukraine’s dollar-denominated bonds maturing in 2029 rose to the highest since February, leading gains among emerging-market debt on Monday amid the progress in talks on the final deal.
European officials expressed optimism that the most recent version of the draft text no longer mentions a plan for some $100 billion in Russian frozen assets go toward U.S.-led efforts to rebuild the country, according to people familiar with the matter. The proposal foresaw the U.S. receiving 50% of the profit with unspent frozen assets going into a U.S.-Russian investment fund.
They also expressed optimism that the Trump administration was engaging with Europe after the initial plan caught Kyiv’s allies off guard.
National security advisers made significant progress late on Sunday in trimming the initial plan to a smaller list of key points to achieve a ceasefire as quickly as possible, said a person familiar with the matter. Other points were excluded for the time being and will be dealt with in seperate documents for later negotiations, the person said.
European Union leaders were meeting in a hybrid format to discuss Ukraine on the sidelines of an E.U.-African Union summit in the Angolan capital Luanda early on Monday.
“When all the issues have been settled, and some of them remain muted, I mean the territorial issues, for example, then the presidents will get in touch to talk over them and probably set the stage for meeting for them to finalize the idea,” Brusylo said. When it comes to NATO membership, “for Ukraine, it is not off the table completely.”
Ukraine faced another drone attack overnight, killing four in second-largest city of Kharkiv. Port infrastructure was hit in southern Odesa region, according to local authorities. Energy targets were attacked in north-eastern and central Ukraine, country’s Energy Ministry said on Telegram.
---------
—With assistance from Michael Nienaber.
©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.






Comments