Ukraine said it would present a detailed plan this year to end its war with Russia, as Moscow accused the United States of stepping up military drone flights over the Black Sea and increasing the risk of a direct clash between Nato and Kremlin forces.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has published a 10-point “peace formula” that was discussed at a summit in Switzerland this month. About 80 countries attended, but Russia was not invited and China stayed away; Kyiv says it wants to forge global consensus around proposals before inviting Moscow to a future summit.
Mr Zelenskiy said on Friday that detailed work was now taking place on three areas that were the focus of the first summit – food and energy security and the exchange of prisoners – and that a more detailed peace plan would be ready this year.
“I am sure we will solve these issues. At least we will prepare a detailed plan. It will be ready in the near future. We will also work out all other points of the peace formula and prepare a comprehensive plan that will be on the table before our partners,” he said after talks in Kyiv with Slovenian president Natasa Pirc Musar.
“We just want peace. But we must be strong and that is why we are developing our [military] production to be strong. Because Russia understands only strength and respects only the strong,” he added. “So these are two parallel things – to be strong on the battlefield and to develop a plan, a clear plan, detailed plan. And it will be ready this year.”
Russia says any peace talks without its involvement are pointless and insists that any settlement must accept its occupation of a swathe of eastern and southern Ukraine, including areas that its invasion force does not control. The Kremlin also demands that Ukraine abandon its ambition of joining Nato.
China has also drawn up a peace plan that only sketches out very broad principles for a possible settlement and does not state that Russia should end its occupation of Ukrainian territory or face repercussions for its full-scale invasion of February 2022.
[ Russia claims air strikes on Ukrainian bases earmarked for western-supplied F-16sOpens in new window ]
After failing to occupy and hold any regional capitals in Ukraine, the Kremlin now claims to be fighting what it calls “the collective West” on Ukrainian territory, in what it portrays as a battle for Russia’s survival.
Moscow’s defence ministry said on Friday that it “notes the increased intensity of flights of US strategic drones over the Black Sea, which carry out reconnaissance and target designation for high-precision weapons supplied to the armed forces of Ukraine by western states, to strike Russian targets.
“This indicates the increasing involvement of the United States and Nato countries in the conflict in Ukraine on the side of the Kyiv regime. Such flights greatly increase the likelihood of incidents in the air with [Russian] aircraft, which raises the risk of direct confrontation between the [Nato] alliance and the Russian Federation.”
Russian defence minister Andrei Belousov had told the military to propose measures for a “prompt response to provocations,” the ministry added.
Moscow said last weekend that the US bore responsibility for a missile attack on the occupied Ukrainian region of Crimea that reportedly killed four people and injured more than 100. It alleged that Ukraine’s military used US-supplied rockets in the strike.
Ukraine said Russian bombing of the eastern village of New York killed four people and injured three other on Friday, and Russia said it shot down 25 Ukrainian drones over its territory, one of which caused a fire at an oil depot in the central Tambov region.
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