From Kommersant, Dec. 10, 2025, p. 6. Condensed text:

On Dec. 9, Kiev and its European allies were due to send Washington their plan for ending the Ukraine conflict, which had been approved by the British, French and German leaders in London the day before. . . .

[Ukrainian] President Vladimir Zelensky announced an alternative peace plan from Kiev and its European allies after talks with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in London that ended on the evening of Dec. 8. The parties promised to forward the plan to Washington on Dec. 9.

Having managed to visit Brussels – where he met with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, European Council President António Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on the same day as his announcement in London – the Ukrainian president headed to Rome to meet with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Pope Leo XIV on Dec. 9.

After quickly securing the support of key players in European politics, Zelensky once again risked defying Trump. His reaction to the US president’s peace plan [see Vol. 77, No. 47, pp. 3-6], which Trump had wanted to hear from him the day before, turned out to be unexpectedly harsh.

This time, without making any polite gestures toward Washington, the Ukrainian leader immediately said that “Trump has his vision, which differs from Ukraine’s.” Then he started to list, one by one, the Ukrainian-European conditions for a future Ukrainian peace.

By stating that Ukraine “does not have the constitutional, international or moral rights to cede territory,” he essentially ruled out the territorial compromise on the Donetsk Basin previously discussed the American negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

The demand for legally binding American security guarantees for Ukraine – which, in Kiev’s mind, the US Congress should vote in favor of and which should not become “empty promises like the Budapest Memorandum” – also sounded like an ultimatum to Washington. Moreover, Kiev and its allies are not considering the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from occupied areas of the Donetsk people’s republic in exchange for security guarantees.

For his part, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the host of the London meeting, announced that a deal to freeze up to 115 billion euros of Russian assets to help Ukraine may be signed in the coming days. Starmer explained the need for a speedy resolution to the question of future financing for Kiev by saying that the talks to end the war “have reached a critical stage.” According to him, this question was also a topic of discussion among leaders of the EU three in London. It is assumed that Russian assets will be used by Ukraine either to continue hostilities for another two years or to rebuild if a peace deal is signed.

As The Times notes, the Europeans believe that the frozen Russian assets are one of their trump cards in the peace talks that will prevent the US from imposing its peace terms on Ukraine.

Overall, the meetings in London are evidence that, at the deciding stage of the talks on Ukraine, which Russia has joined, the Europeans have suddenly rejected their previous position, which did not question American leadership in diplomatic efforts to end the conflict.

At recent trilateral consultations in Geneva between representatives of the US, Europe and Ukraine, it was announced that a second peace plan aside from Trump’s plan does not exist.

In this regard, the demands put forward by participants in the London talks call into question the statements of people close to President Trump who previously expressed the opinion that the negotiation process was entering the home stretch.

According to Axios, the rejection of Trump’s peace plan by Ukraine and its allies stems from the fact that, during the latest round of talks in Miami late last week with US special presidential envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the American negotiators increased pressure on Kiev. Axios reports that the US proposals became tougher after a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin that took place several days before.

“The US proposal included harsher terms than previous versions on issues like territory and control of the nuclear power plant in Zaporozhye, and it left key questions unanswered on security guarantees,” Ukrainian officials complained to Axios.

It’s no surprise that Washington had nothing good to say about the talks in London. According to Axios, “The Trump administration saw Zelensky’s meeting on Downing Street as an unhelpful attempt to buy time in the negotiations over Trump’s peace plan.*** The Europeans are advising caution and patience. That dynamic infuriates some in the White House.”

The refusal of Ukraine and its European allies to continue working on the proposals that were previously discussed by US representatives in Moscow and positively received by Russia in a number of respects leaves President Trump with a difficult choice: increase pressure on the Ukrainian-European war party, or end peacekeeping efforts completely until a new situation emerges that can lead the negotiation process out of its current impasse.

As US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker said on Fox News on Dec. 8, “If the President decides that an agreement is impossible, he will walk away” – that is, he will abandon attempts to end the war in Ukraine. At the same time, Whitaker repeated the American assertion that peace is “nearer than ever before” and that pressure on both sides is still possible.

As famous American political commentator and radio host Steve Gill told TASS, US President Donald Trump may exclude not only European leaders, but also Vladimir Zelensky himself from negotiations on resolving the conflict in Ukraine due to their unwillingness to make concessions.

According to Gill, Trump’s inner circle is “questioning whether Zelensky has the political will and power to actually end the conflict.”

On Dec. 9, Russian Direct Investment Fund head Kirill Dmitriyev summed up Russia’s reaction to the latest attempts by the EU and Britain to torpedo the peace agreement for Ukraine:

“Déjà vu: In 2022, UK prime minister (Boris Johnson – Ed.) pressured Ukraine to reject a neutrality deal with Russia and fight on.1 Globalists, UK and EU bureaucrats, neocons and the defense industry complex, mainstream media fight peace en masse,” Dmitriyev wrote on X. 1[This assertion traces back to press coverage of a 2023 interview with Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia, in which he said that his team had already rejected Russian demands due to constitutional constraints and a lack of trust in their Russian counterparts before discussing the talks with Johnson; see Vol. 75, No. 48-49, pp. 6-7. – Trans.]