US to Demand Putin Accept Ukraine’s Right to Military Force

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(Bloomberg) — The US will demand that Russia accept Ukraine’s right to have its own army and defense industry as part of a peace agreement between Moscow and Kyiv, according to people familiar with the matter.

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US envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to raise the issue with Russian President Vladimir Putin when they next meet, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations. 

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Agreeing to let Kyiv have an adequately equipped and manned army, as demanded by Ukraine and its European allies, would mean Putin would have to give up on his goal for Ukraine’s demilitarization, one of his main stated war aims. 

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It’s a sign that the Trump administration is seeking some concessions from the Kremlin, as well as Ukraine, as it tries to end a war that’s now into its fourth year. Critics have thus far viewed the US proposals as tilted toward Russia, including the Trump administration’s insistence that Ukraine give up its aspirations to join the NATO military alliance. 

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The Trump administration also wants Moscow to return Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which it seized early in its full-scale invasion of its neighbor in 2022. The facility would then fall under US control to administer energy to both sides, said the people. They added that details of the plans had yet to be completed and could still change.

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Spokespeople for the US National Security Council, the State Department and Witkoff didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

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The US also wants to ensure that Ukraine has passage over the Dnieper River and that land occupied by Russia in the Kharkiv region is returned. Putin has demanded recognition of the entirety of the Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Kherson regions, despite having failed to fully occupy them.

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Russia has continued to bomb Ukrainian cities even as talks have continued and as it has insisted that it’s prepared for peace. Overnight, Russia launched the biggest airstrike of the year against Ukraine, targeting Kyiv and killing at least 12 people.

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That forced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to cut short a visit to South Africa on Thursday. Before he left, though, Zelenskiy told reporters that “we can’t talk about red lines without an unconditional ceasefire.”

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At a meeting in Paris last week, President Donald Trump’s team presented Europe and Ukraine with a proposal to end the war that would also see the US recognize Ukraine’s Crimea region as Russian while freezing most other occupied territories along current battle lines, effectively leaving them under Moscow’s control, Bloomberg News previously reported. 

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Crimea was taken by the Kremlin in 2014 following an invasion and subsequent referendum held under occupation, and the international community has resisted recognizing the peninsula as Russian to avoid legitimizing the illegal annexation. Zelenskiy has repeatedly said he won’t cede territory to Moscow.