By Tom Balmforth and Olena Harmash
KYIV (Reuters) -President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appealed to Ukrainians for unity on Friday and vowed he would never betray Ukraine, in a solemn address to the nation after the United States presented Kyiv with a peace plan that endorses key Russian demands.
Speaking in the street outside his office, a location he uses only rarely for major addresses, Zelenskiy said Ukraine was trying to preserve its freedom while retaining the support of its most important ally.
“Now is one of the most difficult moments of our history. Now, the pressure on Ukraine is one of the heaviest. Now, Ukraine can face a very difficult choice — either losing dignity or risk losing a major partner,” he said.
“I will fight 24/7 to ensure that at least two points in the plan are not overlooked – the dignity and freedom of Ukrainians,” Zelenskiy said.
Washington has presented Kyiv with a 28-point plan, which calls for Ukraine to cede territory, accept limits to its military and renounce ambitions to join NATO.
Two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that Washington has given Ukraine a week to accept the framework.
The United States had threatened to cut off intelligence sharing and weapons supplies for Ukraine if it does not accept the deal, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity to disclose the contents of private meetings. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A U.S. military delegation met Zelenskiy in Kyiv on Thursday. The U.S. ambassador and the army public affairs chief travelling with the delegation described the meeting as a success and said Washington sought an “aggressive timeline” for the U.S. and Ukraine to sign a document.
Zelenskiy held a phone call on Friday with the leaders of allies Britain, Germany and France, and later spoke to U.S. Vice President JD Vance. In earlier remarks he appeared careful not to reject the U.S. plan or to offend the Americans.
“We value the efforts of the United States, President Trump, and his team aimed at ending this war. We are working on the document prepared by the American side. This must be a plan that ensures a real and dignified peace,” he said.
But the plan’s call for terms that Kyiv has rejected in the past as capitulation could test the stability of Ukrainian society after nearly four years of relentless warfare.
“Russia gets everything it wants and Ukraine gets not very much. If Zelenskiy accepts this I anticipate huge political, social and economic instability in Ukraine,” said Tim Ash of Britain’s Chatham House think tank.
‘A VERY DANGEROUS MOMENT’
European leaders, who were not consulted on the 28-point plan, expressed their strong support for Kyiv.
“We all want this war to end, but how it ends matters. Russia has no legal right whatsoever to any concessions from the country it invaded,” said the EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas. “This is a very dangerous moment for all.”
U.S. officials, defending their plan, have said it was drafted after consultations with Rustem Umerov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, a close Zelenskiy ally who served as defence minister until July.
Umerov “agreed to the majority of the plan, after making several modifications, and presented it to President Zelenskiy,” a senior U.S. official said on Thursday.
Umerov denied agreeing to any of the plan’s terms, and said he had played only a technical role organising talks: “I provided no assessments or, even more so, approvals of any points. This is not within my authority and does not correspond to the procedure,” he wrote on Telegram.
The Kremlin, for its part, said Russia had not received anything official from the United States about a peace plan. Kyiv should make a “responsible decision”, and do it now, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
RUSSIA’S DEMANDS SPELLED OUT, KYIV’S LEFT VAGUE
The plan, a copy of which was reviewed by Reuters, would require Ukraine to withdraw from territory it still controls in eastern provinces Russia claims to have annexed, while Russia would give up smaller amounts of land it holds in other regions.
Ukraine would be permanently barred from joining the NATO military alliance, and its armed forces would be capped at 600,000 troops. NATO would agree never to station troops there.
Sanctions against Russia would be gradually lifted, Moscow would be invited back into the G8 group of industrialised countries, and frozen Russian assets would be pooled in an investment fund, with Washington given some of the profits.
One of Ukraine’s main demands, for enforceable guarantees equivalent to the NATO alliance’s mutual defence clause to deter Russia from attacking again, is dealt with in a single line with no details: “Ukraine will receive robust security guarantees”.
Trump, who returned to office this year vowing to quickly end the war, has accepted some of Russia’s justifications for its 2022 invasion of its neighbour while also expressing some impatience with Moscow.
Last month he cancelled a proposed summit with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and imposed sanctions on Russia’s two main oil companies, set to come into full effect on Friday, Washington’s deadline for foreign buyers to wind down Russian oil purchases.
(Additional reporting by Max Hunder, Anastasiia Malenko, Yuliia Dysa and Dan Peleshuk and Alessandro Parodi; writing by Peter Graff; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
