Zelenskyy says US-led peace talks wrestling with Russian demands for
Ukrainian territory
[December 12, 2025]
By ILLIA NOVIKOV and SUSIE BLANN
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said
Thursday that negotiators are wrestling with the question of territorial
possession in U.S.-led peace talks on ending the war with Russia,
including the future of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region and the
Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, one of the world’s 10
biggest atomic plants.
Zelenskyy revealed details of the ongoing discussions before he headed
into urgent talks with leaders and officials from about 30 countries
that support Kyiv’s efforts to obtain fair terms in any settlement to
halt nearly four years of fighting.
In Washington, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said
President Donald Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, continued to be
in discussions with both sides. She said that “if there is a real chance
of signing a peace agreement,” then the U.S. could send a representative
to the talks as soon as this weekend.
But Leavitt added that it’s “still up in the air whether we believe real
peace can be achieved.”
Trump long boasted about being able to solve Russia’s war in Ukraine in
a day, but in recent months has complained bitterly about a lack of
progress. Leavitt echoed that during her briefing with reporters on
Thursday, saying the president is “extremely frustrated with both sides
of this war.”
She said the administration had spent 30-plus hours just in recent weeks
meeting with officials from Russia and Ukraine as well as Europe, and
that Trump is “sick of meetings just for the sake of meeting.”
“He doesn’t want any more talk,” Leavitt said. “He wants action.”
Ukraine has submitted a 20-point plan to the U.S., with each point
possibly accompanied by a separate document detailing the settlement
terms.
“We are grateful that the U.S. is working with us and trying to take a
balanced position,” Zelenskyy told reporters in the Ukrainian capital
Kyiv. “But at this moment it is still difficult to say what the final
documents will look like.”
Russia has in recent months made a determined push to gain control of
all parts of Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk, which together make up
Ukraine’s valuable Donbas industrial region.
Ukraine doesn’t accept the surrender of Donbas, Zelenskyy said, saying
that both sides remaining where they currently stand along the line of
contact would be “a fair outcome.”
American negotiators have put forward the possibility of a “free
economic zone” in the Donbas, with the Russians terming it a
“demilitarized zone,” according to Zelenskyy.
Russian officials have not publicly disclosed their proposals.
U.S. negotiators foresee Ukrainian forces withdrawing from the Donetsk
region, with the compromise being that Russian forces do not enter that
territory, Zelenskyy said.
But he said that if Ukraine must withdraw its forces, the Russians
should also withdraw by the same distance. There are many unanswered
questions, including who would oversee the Donbas, he added.
The Russians want to retain control of the Zaporizhzhia plant in
southern Ukraine, which is not currently operating, but Ukraine opposes
that.
The Americans have suggested a joint format to manage the plant, and
negotiators are discussing how that might work, Zelenskyy said.
Ukraine's allies discuss peace plan with Zelenskyy
The leaders of Germany, Britain and France were among those taking part
in the meeting of Ukraine's allies, dubbed the Coalition of the Willing,
via video link.
Zelenskyy indicated the talks were hastily arranged as Kyiv officials
scramble to avoid getting boxed in by U.S. President Donald Trump, who
has disparaged the Ukrainian leader, painted European leaders as weak,
and set a strategy of improving Washington's relationship with Moscow.
In the face of Trump’s demands for a swift settlement, European
governments are trying to help steer the peace negotiations because they
say their own security is at stake.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Thursday that he, British Prime
Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron suggested to
Trump that they finalize the peace proposals together with U.S.
officials over the weekend. There may also be talks in Berlin early next
week, with or without American officials, he said.
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EU Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos, right, attends a joint
press conference with Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister for European
and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine Taras Kachka, left, and
Marie Bjerre, Danish Minister for European Affairs, after informal
meeting of EU ministers for European affairs in Lviv, Ukraine, on
Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
The talks are at “a critical moment,” European leaders said
Wednesday.
Next week, Ukraine will coordinate with European countries on a
bilateral level, Zelenskyy said late Wednesday, and European Union
countries are due to hold a regular summit in Brussels at the end of
next week.
Russia has new proposals on security
Trump’s latest effort to broker a settlement is taking longer than
he wanted. He initially set a deadline for Kyiv to accept his peace
plan before Thanksgiving. Previous Washington deadlines for reaching
a peace deal also have passed without a breakthrough.
Russia is also keen to show Trump it is engaging with his peace
efforts, hoping to avoid further U.S. sanctions. Russia’s Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday that Russia has relayed to
Washington “additional proposals … concerning collective security
guarantees” that Ukraine and Europe say are needed to deter future
aggression.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said Thursday that so far this
year Russia has launched over 46,000 drones and missiles against
Ukraine.
He warned his European audience at a speech in Berlin: “We are
Russia’s next target.”
He also described China as “Russia’s lifeline” for its war effort in
Ukraine by providing most of the critical electronic components
Moscow needs for its weapons. “China wants to prevent its ally from
losing in Ukraine,” Rutte said.
Russia claims battlefield progress
Putin claimed Thursday in a call with military leaders that Russian
armed forces are “fully holding the strategic initiative” on the
battlefield.
Russian troops have taken the city of Siversk, in the Donetsk region
of eastern Ukraine where fighting has been fierce in recent months,
Lt. Gen. Sergei Medvedev told Putin.
Ukrainian officials denied Siversk had been captured.
Putin wants to portray himself as negotiating from a position of
strength, analysts say, although Russia occupies only about 20% of
Ukraine. That includes Moscow’s 2014 illegal annexation of Crimea
and the seizure of territory in the east by Russia-backed
separatists later that year, as well as land taken after the
full-blown invasion in 2022.
Ukrainian drones hit Russian oil rig, disrupt Moscow flights
Meanwhile, Ukrainian long-range drones hit a Russian oil rig in the
Caspian Sea for the first time, according to an official in the
Security Service of Ukraine who was not authorized to talk publicly
about the attack and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The oil rig in the northern part of the Caspian Sea, about 1,000
kilometers (600 miles) from Ukraine, belongs to Russia’s
second-biggest oil company, Lukoil, the official told The Associated
Press. The rig took four hits, halting the extraction of oil and gas
from over 20 wells, he said.
Russian officials and Lukoil made no immediate comment on the claim.
Ukraine also launched one of its biggest drone attacks of the war
overnight, halting flights in and out of all four Moscow airports
for seven hours. Airports in eight other cities also faced
restrictions, Russian civil aviation authority Rosaviatsia said.
___
Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin, Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia,
and Will Weissert in Washington contributed.
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