Ukrainian president says peace deal proposed by US included ceding land to Russia. What we know on day 1,492
The US is making its offer of security guarantees for a peace deal in Ukraine conditional on Kyiv ceding all of the country’s eastern region of Donbas to Russia, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Reuters in an interview. With the US focused on its own conflict with Iran, president Donald Trump is applying pressure to Ukraine in an effort to bring a quick end to the four-year war triggered by Russia’s 2022 invasion, Zelenskyy said. “The Middle East definitely has an impact on President Trump, and I think on his next steps. President Trump, unfortunately, in my opinion, still chooses a strategy of putting more pressure on the Ukrainian side,” he told Reuters. “I would very much like the American side to understand that the eastern part of our country is part of our security guarantees,” he said.
Russia sought to blackmail the US by offering to stop sharing military intelligence with Iran if, in return, Washington would cut off Ukraine from its intelligence data, Zelenskyy said on Wednesday. Zelenskyy, who said on Monday that Ukraine’s military intelligence has “irrefutable” evidence that Russia was continuing to provide intelligence to Iran, told Reuters he had seen the data but provided no further details. “I have reports from our intelligence services showing that Russia is doing this and saying: ‘I will not pass on intelligence to Iran if America stops passing intelligence to Ukraine.’ Isn’t that blackmail? Absolutely,” Zelenskyy said.
