- U.S. renews effort to end Russia-Ukraine war.
- Momentum building despite unresolved key issues.
- Officials emphasize ongoing diplomatic challenges ahead.
The report was released just hours after Russia launched a series of attacks on Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, during the night. The bombings targeted energy infrastructure and city buildings, killing at least seven people. Three people were murdered and homes were damaged in a Ukrainian attack on southern Russia, according to authorities.
“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.
Last week, President Donald Trump unveiled his plan to stop the conflict, which has been going on for almost four years. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, promptly engaged with American negotiators after it strongly backed Russia. Fearing for their own future in the face of Russian aggression, European officials scrambled to guide the negotiations toward addressing their concerns despite Trump's apparent neglect of them during the proposal-writing process.
Senior Ukrainian and American officials reported that the war-ending negotiations in Geneva on Sunday had made headway.
Peace initiatives are gaining traction and "are clearly at a crucial juncture," according to French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday.
“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.”
A U.S. functionary told The Associated Press that U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll spent several hours in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, meeting with Russian officers on Tuesday.
Driscoll, who joined the U.S. concession team less than two weeks ago, is leading the most recent round of conversations about implicit terms for a peace deal with Russia.
The U.S. functionary, who spoke on condition of obscurity to bandy delicate accommodations, said that the Ukrainians were apprehensive of the meeting and that all sides had expressed a desire to come to an agreement to end the fighting as soon as possible. Still, he declined to give specifics regarding the duration of the addresses or the subjects being bandied.
Twenty people were injured in Kyiv, according to Mayor Vitalii Klitschko. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, it targeted energy means and military-artificial structure. According to the ministry, the strikes were a response to Ukrainian airstrikes on Russian mercenary targets.
90- year-old Liubov Petrivna, who lives in a damaged structure in the Dniprovskyi area, told the AP that" glass rained down" on her and" absolutely everything" in her flat was destroyed by the attack.
Gov. Veniamin Kondratyev described the nighttime Ukrainian drone strike on the southern Russian district of Krasnodar as "one of the longest and most massive," injuring six people.
The Russian Defense Ministry announced on Tuesday that 249 Ukrainian drones were destroyed by Russian air defenses overnight over a number of Russian areas and the seized Crimean Peninsula.
Ukraine claimed that its drones and dumdums hit an oil painting refinery, an oil painting harborage, a drone manufacturing point, and an aviation repair plant.
According to an AP computation, it was the fourth- largest Ukrainian drone attack on Russia since the war began on February 24, 2022.
How would the plan affect Ukraine's territorial integrity and security guarantees?
The plan envisions Ukraine making expansive territorial concessions to Russia, including feting Crimea, Luhansk, and the entirety of Donetsk (including areas still under Ukrainian control) as de facto Russian home.
It proposes inducting the frontal lines in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, effectively feting Russian control over these queried areas. Ukraine’s sovereignty would be" reconfirmed," but with crucial territorial negotiations that numerous see as heavily favoring Russia.
Security guarantees would be offered by the U.S., but these are tentative and vague. Ukraine risks losing these guarantees if it's supposed to have attacked Russia, indeed unintentionally. The plan requires Ukraine to stay out of NATO and limits NATO's presence by proscribing deployment of colors on Ukrainian soil.