US proposes 15-year security guarantees for Ukraine as peace talks continue

KYIV (Ukraine), Dec 29 (Agencies): The United States (US) has proposed security guarantees for Ukraine lasting 15 years as part of a draft peace plan, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday, while stressing that a longer commitment would be needed to deter Russia from future aggression.

Zelenskyy said he would prefer US-backed guarantees for up to 50 years to prevent Moscow from attempting to seize Ukrainian territory again.

US President Donald Trump hosted Zelenskyy at his Florida resort on Sunday and said Ukraine and Russia were "closer than ever before" to reaching a peace agreement, though he cautioned that the negotiations could still fail.

Despite months of US-led talks, major sticking points remain unresolved, including the withdrawal of forces and the future of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, one of the largest in the world.

"Without security guarantees, realistically, this war will not end," Zelenskyy told reporters in voice messages sent in response to questions via WhatsApp.

Ukraine has been at war with Russia since 2014, when Moscow illegally annexed Crimea and Russia-backed separatists launched an armed uprising in the eastern Donbas region.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin said on Monday that Ukraine should withdraw its troops from the part of Donbas that it still controls if it wanted peace, and that if Kyiv did not strike a deal then it would lose yet more territory.

Putin and Trump spoke on Sunday ahead of Trump's meeting in Miami with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said another call was planned very soon.

Peskov refused to comment on the idea of a free economic zone in Donbas or on the future of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is controlled by Russia, saying that the Kremlin felt it was inappropriate.

Earlier, US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy were "getting a lot closer, maybe very close" to an agreement to end the war in Ukraine, while acknowledging that the fate of the Donbas region remains a key unresolved issue.

The two leaders spoke at a joint news conference after meeting at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Sunday afternoon. Both leaders reported progress on two of the most contentious issues in peace talks - security guarantees for Ukraine and the division of eastern Ukraine's Donbas region that Russia has sought to capture.

Both Trump and Zelenskiy offered few details and did not provide a deadline for completing a peace deal, although Trump said it will be clear "in a few weeks" whether negotiations to end the war will succeed. He said a few "thorny issues" around territory must be resolved.

Zelenskiy said an agreement on security guarantees for Ukraine has been reached. Trump was slightly more cautious, saying that they were 95 per cent of the way to such an agreement, and that he expected European countries to "take over a big part" of that effort with US backing.

French President Emmanuel Macron, in an X post published after Trump met with Zelenskiy, said progress was made on security guarantees.