Trump gives Ukraine ultimatum to accept US-backed peace plan
US President Donald Trump said he wants Ukraine to accept by next Thursday a plan aimed at ending its nearly four-year war with Russia.
Trump set the Thanksgiving Day deadline on Friday after his administration presented the 28-point peace plan to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who noted the heavy pressure now on his country and that it may have a “very tough choice” ahead, facing the prospect of losing its “dignity or the risk of losing a key partner.”
According to a Ukrainian government official, Zelenskyy and European leaders have agreed to craft an alternative to the plan.
“I’ve had a lot of deadlines, but if things are working well, you tend to extend the deadlines,” Trump said in a Fox News Radio interview. “But Thursday is, we think, an appropriate time.”
The US-backed proposal contains many of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s key demands, including Ukraine agreeing to give up on joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. (Nato), ceding parts of its territory and reducing the size of its military.
Trump later told reporters at the White House that if Zelenskyy does not like the proposal, then “they should just keep fighting.”
“At some point, he’s going to have to accept something,” Trump added.
‘Calmly’
In a video address to the nation on Friday, Zelenskyy said he would enter negotiations with the United States but stressed that he would never betray Ukraine’s national interest, and the dignity and freedom of Ukrainians.
“We’re not making loud statements. We will work calmly with the United States and with all our partners,” Zelenskyy said, adding he had a call with US Vice President JD Vance to discuss details of the peace plan.
Zelenskyy said on social media that they agreed to work together with European countries “at the level of national security advisers to make the path to peace truly doable.”
“Ukraine has always respected and continues to respect US President Donald Trump’s desire to put an end to the bloodshed, and we view every realistic proposal positively,” he wrote.
Zelenskyy said he also discussed the peace plan with European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, as well as Mark Rutte, secretary general of Nato.
Putin said during an online meeting with members of the Russian Security Council that he believes the 28-point plan can be used as “the basis for a final peaceful settlement.”
Glide bomb
As Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian officials studied Trump’s peace plan, a Russian glide bomb slammed into a residential district in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, killing five people, officials said Friday, as Moscow’s forces continued to hammer civilian areas of Ukraine.
The overnight attack, which also injured 10 people, including a teenage girl, occurred after details emerged of a US plan to end the war, nearly four years after Russia’s all-out invasion of its neighbor.
The powerful glide bomb that hit Zaporizhzhia damaged some high-rise apartment blocks for the third time since the war began and also wrecked a local market, according to the head of the regional military administration, Ivan Fedorov.
The brute force of glide bombs, a retrofitted Soviet weapon launched by Russian jets flying at high altitude, has for months laid waste to Ukraine’s front-line cities. Ukraine has no effective countermeasure against them.
A Russian drone assault on the southern city of Odesa also struck a residential area during the night, injuring five people, including a 16-year-old boy.
The attacks came two days after a Russian drone and missile barrage on Ukraine’s western city of Ternopil killed 31 people, including six children, and injured 94 others, including 18 children.
Emergency services say 13 people are still unaccounted for after the attack crushed the top floors of apartment blocks and started fires.
