Closing summary
… and on that note, it’s a wrap!
Russia’s foreign minister warned that Moscow must have an effective veto over any measures to support Ukraine once a peace deal is reached, undermining western plans to provide Kyiv with security guarantees (12:30, 13:18).
The report comes as Russian sources claimed that Russia would demand that Ukraine give up all of the eastern Donbas region, renounce ambitions to join Nato, remain neutral and keep western troops out of the country as part of any peace talks, Reuters reported (17:10).
Military chiefs from the US and the European countries have developed new proposals on security guarantees for Ukraine and will present them to their respective national security advisers, a US official said, drawing on the last behind-the-scenes conversations on this issue (16:26).
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he would want to see an agreement on security guarantees for Ukraine before meeting Russia’s Vladimir Putin, in the next 7-10 days (10:10, 11:50, 12:14).
European Nato leaders must not be naive when discussing a Ukraine peace force but face up to the reality that they would need to deploy tens of thousands of troops to the country for the long term, the head of Germany’s soldiers’ union said (15:54).
Elsewhere,
Polish authorities have said that an alleged Russian drone that crossed into Poland and exploded in rural eastern part of the country came with “very high probability” from Belarus (11:15).
Italian police have arrested a Ukrainian man suspected of coordinating the attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines, Germany’s prosecutor general said, adding that he would be brought before a German judge after being transferred, Reuters reported (12:36).
In other news,
The EU and the US have now agreed on the much-awaited “joint statement” advancing the political commitments on trade agreed by Ursula von der Leyen and Donald Trump in Scotland last month (13:09).
EU’s trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič argued that “this framework is the first step, one that can grow over time to cover more sectors,” as he warned that the alternative of a “trade war with sky high tariffs” would have been highly damaging (13:22).
The deal includes some reassurances for EU carmakers (13:25), but not wine and spiritmakers (13:41), despite heavy lobbying.
And that’s all from me, Jakub Krupa, for today.
If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at [email protected].
I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.
Putin wants Donbas, no Nato, and no Western troops in Ukraine, Reuters says
Vladimir Putin is demanding that Ukraine give up all of the eastern Donbas region, renounce ambitions to join Nato, remain neutral and keep western troops out of the country, three sources familiar with top-level Kremlin thinking told Reuters.
Reuters claimed it was able to outline the contours of what the Kremlin would like to see in a possible peace deal to end a war that has killed and injured hundreds of thousands of people.
In essence, the Russian sources told Reuters, Putin has compromised on territorial demands he laid out in June 2024, which required Kyiv to cede the entirety of the four provinces Moscow claims as part of Russia: Dontesk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine - which make up the Donbas – plus Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south.
Kyiv rejected those terms as tantamount to surrender.
In his new proposal, the Russian president has stuck to his demand that Ukraine completely withdraw from the parts of the Donbas it still controls, according to the three sources. In return, though, Moscow would halt the current front lines in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, they added.
Moscow is also willing to hand over the small parts of the Kharkiv, Sumy, and Dnipropetrovsk regions of Ukraine it controls as part of a possible deal, the sources that Reuters spoke with said.
The agency said that Putin is sticking, too, to his previous demands that Ukraine give up its Nato ambitions and for a legally binding pledge from the military alliance that it will not expand further eastwards, as well as for limits on the Ukrainian army and an agreement that no western troops will be deployed on the ground in Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping force, the sources said.
