Ukraine-Russia peace road map ‘drafted by US’ slammed as ‘planted by Moscow’ | World | News

Hopes that Donald Trump’s return to the White House will put a speedy end to the nearly three-year-long war in Ukraine gained momentum after the publication of an alleged US’ 100-day roadmap to ending fighting in Eastern Europe.

Ukrainian news website Strana.ua published a “100-day plan” for bringing the conflict to a close, appearing to offer an insight into Mr Trump’s projected timeline for scaling down the fighting and overseeing peace talks. However, the reporting by the popular news outlet accused of being Russia-leaning, has been already slammed by an Ukrainian official.

The website claimed the plan was reportedly shared by the US government with European diplomats, but has not been publicly endorsed by Mr Trump’s administration and its authenticity cannot be confirmed.

The alleged road map suggests that a preliminary phone call between Mr Trump and Vladimir Putin could happen in late January or early February – at which point the US President’s team would propose a staggered series of negotiations between the Washington, Moscow and Kyiv over a four-month period.

The alleged plan could then see meetings between Mr Trump, Putin and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky take place from February to March, before, if all goes as planned, a ceasefire is announced on April 20 alongside the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the Russian region of Kursk Kyiv troops are currently partially holding.

From late April onwards, the “100-day plan” proposes an end-of-war agreement between Russia and Ukraine to be formalised at an international peace conference and a gradual prisoner exchange on an “all for all” basis.

A full declaration of the end of the UkraineRussia war could then be expected by May 9 at the hypothetical peace conference, the alleged plan suggests.

However, Andriy Yermak, head of President Zelensky’s office, wrote on Telegram that “none of the ‘100-day peace plans’ in the media actually exist in reality,” suggesting instead that they were “planted stories, often legitimised by Russians”.

Putin signalled last week that Moscow is prepared to engage with the US on talks on a range of issues.

In an interview with state television, he suggested that if Mr Trump had been in power when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the ensuing long-running conflict could have been avoided – and also endorsed Mr Trump’s refusal to accept his election loss in 2020.

“I couldn’t disagree with him that if he had been president, if they hadn’t stolen victory from him in 2020, the crisis that emerged in Ukraine in 2022 could have been avoided,” he said.

Mr Trump had pledged to quickly end the war in Ukraine. But his plan for bringing the conflict to an end could be stymied by Mr Zelensky’s decision in 2022 to rule out negotiations with Putin, with he and other Western nations having denounced the invasion as an unprovoked act of aggression.

Mr Trump, who told Fox News last week that Mr Zelensky should have made a deal with the Kremlin to avoid the conflict, has threatened to impose sanctions and tariffs on Russia if it doesn’t cooperate in bringing the conflict to a close.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters shortly afterwards that Moscow was “ready for a mutually respectful dialogue” in line with the one “between the two presidents during Trump’s first presidency”.

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