The Trump administration has signalled to Ukraine that U.S. security guarantees depend on Kyiv agreeing to a peace deal likely requiring it to cede the Donbas region to Russia, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, citing eight people familiar with the talks.
Washington has also indicated it could offer Ukraine more weapons to strengthen its peacetime army if Kyiv agreed to withdraw forces from the parts of the eastern region it controls, the newspaper said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday that a U.S. document on security guarantees for Ukraine was “100% ready” and Kyiv is now awaiting a time and place for it to be signed.
A senior Ukrainian official told the Financial Times that Ukraine is increasingly uncertain whether Washington will commit to security guarantees, adding that the U.S. “stops each time the security guarantees can be signed.”
According to the report, Kyiv wants the guarantees confirmed before conceding any territory, but the U.S. believes Ukraine must give up the Donbas for the war to end.
A person familiar with the U.S. position, however, told the newspaper that Washington was “not trying to force any territorial concessions upon Ukraine,” adding that security guarantees depend on both sides agreeing to a peace deal.
On Monday, the Kremlin said the question of territory remained fundamental to any deal to end the fighting in Ukraine, the TASS news agency reported.
“It’s no secret that this is our consistent position, the position of our president, that the territorial issue, which is part of the Anchorage formula, is of fundamental importance to the Russian side,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by TASS.
The “Anchorage formula” refers to what Russia says was agreed between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at a summit in Alaska last August, according to a source close to the Kremlin.
