Kremlin says any peace plan must eliminate root causes of the Ukraine conflict

MOSCOW: The Kremlin said on Thursday that any peace plan for Ukraine would have to eliminate the root causes of the conflict and that though there were contacts with the United States there were currently no negotiations with Washington on such a plan.

AI Brief

US proposed a 28-point plan for Ukraine to give up territory and weapons in exchange for security guarantees.
Kremlin says no formal consultations on the plan and reiterates demands for Ukraine to remain neutral and limit its military.
Putin frames the war as a response to NATO expansion and Western humiliation after the Soviet Unions collapse.

The U.S. has signalled to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that Ukraine must accept a U.S.-drafted framework to end the war with Russia that proposes Kyiv giving up territory and some weapons, two people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

Axios, which first reported about the 28-point plan, said that Ukraine and Europe would receive a U.S. security guarantee in exchange for Kyiv ceding parts of eastern Ukraine to Russia that Moscow does not currently control.

The Kremlin said that it had nothing to add to what had been said at the August summit in Anchorage, Alaska, between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump.

"We can't add anything new to what was said in Anchorage," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, adding that there were no formal consultations or negotiations underway with the United States on a Ukraine peace plan.

"As such, consultations are not currently underway. There are contacts, of course, but there is no process that could be called consultations," he said.

When asked if Putin had been briefed on the reported "28-point peace plan", Peskov said: "I have nothing to add to what I have already said.

"A settlement must lead to the elimination of the root causes of this conflict," Peskov said.

Putin portrays the war as a watershed moment in Moscow's relations with the West, which he says humiliated Russia after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union by enlarging NATO and encroaching on what he considers Moscow's sphere of influence, including Ukraine and Georgia.

Putin has demanded that Ukraine give up its ambition to join NATO, declare itself a neutral country and limit its armed forces.

Former U.S. President Joe Biden, Western European leaders and Ukraine cast the Ukraine war as an imperial-style land grab and have repeatedly vowed to defeat Russian forces.