Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha said that, at this stage, a direct agreement between Ukraine and Russia to end Russia’s war of aggression is not under discussion.
“Speaking strictly about this 20-point framework (an agreement to end the war in Ukraine), for now it’s a bilateral document to be signed by the United States and Ukraine.”
“As for Russia — the United States would sign with Moscow as well.”
“That’s the structure currently being discussed, but negotiations are ongoing — it’s a process,” Sybiha said in an interview with European Pravda.
European partners, whose signatures are not envisaged on the agreements, “are present in the peace process and in the arrangements on security guarantees,” Sybiha added, noting that “for the first time we are talking specifically about ‘security guarantees,’ not ‘assurances’ or something similar.”
He also confirmed there will be no U.S. peacekeepers on Ukrainian territory under any outcome of the talks.
Two “sensitive issues” remain unresolved in the negotiations — territory and the status of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, he said.
To resolve them, President Volodymyr Zelensky is ready to meet personally with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Sybiha emphasized.
According to The Financial Times, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has indicated to Ukraine that Washington’s security guarantees depend on Kyiv agreeing to a peace deal that would likely include ceding Donbas to Russia.
Two of them said Washington also promised Kyiv additional weapons deliveries to support the country in peacetime if Ukraine meets that condition.
Deputy White House Press Secretary Anna Kelly rejected the article’s claims, accusing the FT of “allowing malicious and anonymous lies to spread in order to derail a peace process that is in an excellent stage after the historic trilateral meeting in Abu Dhabi.”
A senior official in Kyiv said the U.S. is “using guarantees to push Ukraine” toward concessions that, in Washington’s view, could “bring Russia to the negotiating table.”
Several Ukrainian officials and military analysts warned that if Russia takes Donbas, it would give its forces a springboard for deeper advances into Ukraine.
The Trump administration expects a Russia-Ukraine peace agreement to be concluded by May 15 this year, Oleksiy Honcharenko, a Verkhovna Rada lawmaker from the European Solidarity party, said on the Ranok.LIVE online program on January 27, citing his sources.
He said May is viewed in the U.S. as an informal deadline for a deal between Kyiv and Moscow, after which the American side may exit the talks.
Over the weekend, Abu Dhabi hosted the first trilateral negotiations among representatives of Russia, Ukraine and the United States on ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Ukrainian president later praised the talks and said delegations will meet again on February 1.
