Ukraine will present a “victory plan” to its allies at this weekend’s NATO meeting in Germany, President Volodymyr Zelensky promised on Saturday.
The Ukrainian President is due to meet US President Joe Biden and other heads of state at a meeting with Kiev’s key NATO and other allies at the US Ramstein Air Base on 12 October, Reuters reported.
“We will present the victory plan, clear, specific steps for a just end to the war”, Zelensky wrote on his Telegram.
Zelensky said in one of his latest video speeches that his government, military and diplomats would do all they could in the coming days to ensure that the meeting in Ramstein, Germany, will be “positive for our defence, for our vision of how the war should end”.
Officials “unrealistic”
Mr Zelensky presented his plan to Mr Biden and the two candidates to succeed him, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, last week after months of Kiev floating ideas on how to end the war.
According to the White House, Mr Zelensky’s plan included “a number of productive steps”, although it did not elaborate on what these were.
A US official reportedly described the Ukrainian proposals as a repackaged request for more weapons and a lifting of restrictions on the use of long-range missiles. The plan would also assume that Russia is ultimately defeated in the war, which is increasingly seen as an unrealistic scenario even within the US administration.
Zelenskyy to pitch "Victory Plan" again at Ramstein meeting
President Zelenskyy's recent US trip to present Ukraine's "victory plan" failed to achieve concrete results, leaving Ukraine in an uncertain position regarding future support, WP says.https://t.co/b6byZOs9I3
— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) October 6, 2024
Refusing to give up territory
The Financial Times, citing unnamed diplomats, reported on Saturday that Ukraine’s ceding of land to Russia in order to join NATO may be the “only game in town” Ukrainian media meanwhile quoted a source in Mr Zelensky’s office as saying that Kiev does not “trade sovereignty and territories” and called the data “simply chatter”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in June that Moscow would be willing to end the war if Kiev agreed to recognise Russian sovereignty over the four regions previously annexed by Moscow and drop its ambitions to join NATO – a proposal so far rejected by the Ukrainian side.
Volodymyr Zelensky arrives at the NATO summit at a time when the Ukrainian army is clearly struggling. Last week it suffered a major battlefield setback when Russian troops captured the strategic town of Vuhledar after two years of resistance.