Trump dispatches key envoy to Putin in bid to secure Ukraine peace deal
As negotiations continue to secure peace between Ukraine and Russia, Donald Trump has sent a key special envoy to Vladimir Putin to finalise a deal.
After a week of tense negotiations, Ukraine finally agreed to a revised 19-point peace plan on Tuesday; however, it is understood the terms aren’t quite what the Kremlin had in mind.
When Trump first proposed a peace plan earlier this year in his original 28-point plan, the original outline favoured Russia and would require Ukraine to make several sacrifices, including surrendering territory to secure a peaceful solution.
It would also have required Ukraine to abandon plans to join NATO as well as cap its military at 600,000.
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Even more controversially, Trump’s original plan recognised Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk as de facto Russian, granting Putin parts of Donetsk he hadn’t even captured.
By contrast, Russia had to concede to virtually nothing, meaning the entire plan was skewed in favour of the Kremlin.
Unsurprisingly, the proposed deal wasn’t accepted and was later revised this week with input from Kyiv, the US and the European Union in the hopes of agreeing on something that was a little more favourable.
Instead, the new deal, which Ukraine has since agreed to, sees Kyiv promise to cap its military at 800,000, and NATO membership remains on the table.
Amnesty deals for war crimes committed during the last three years of conflict were also taken off the table, as was a requirement to hold an election within 100 days.
However, Ukraine’s agreement is just one half of the deal, as Russia must also sign on the dotted line and accept the terms if a meaningful resolution can actually be established.
Given the new deal no longer favors Russia, sceptics have warned that Putin will likely shoot it down, something which Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov himself also hinted at.
Speaking on Tuesday, he warned that if the plan ‘erased ... key understandings' that Putin reached with Trump at the landmark Alaska summit earlier this Summer, the 'situation will be fundamentally different'.
Anticipating some pushback, Trump has now dispatched special envoy Steve Witkoff, the architect of the Gaza peace deal, to meet with Putin in Moscow.
Sharing the news on Truth Social, Trump also added: “The original 28-point peace plan, which was drafted by the United States, has been fine-tuned, with additional input from both sides, and there are only a few remaining points of disagreement.
“I look forward to hopefully meeting with president [Volodymyr] Zelensky and president Putin soon, but only when the deal to end this war is final.”
Witkoff is the second special envoy to have been dispatched in recent days, following US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll’s meetings with the Russian delegation over the weekend in the United Arab Emirates.
Bolstered by his recent success in securing a ceasefire in Gaza, Trump had hoped for a repeat performance with Ukraine, even going so far as to attempt to pressure Zelenskyy into agreeing to a deal.
Trump had threatened to cut intelligence sharing and weapons supplies to Ukraine unless Zelensky signed the deal, a move which was widely slammed by America's European allies.
Following a few key revisions, a new US-drafted peace plan was put to Ukraine last week, with a deadline set for Thursday to agree to the terms.
“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.
“There are a few delicate, but not insurmountable, details that must be sorted out and will require further talks between Ukraine, Russia, and the United States.”
Phoebe Tonks