47m ago
09.45 CET
Ukraine's
allies to meet at G20 summit to 'strengthen' US plan as Zelenskyy says his
country faces impossible choice
UK prime
minister Keir Starmer is expected to meet Ukraine’s allies at the Johannesburg
G20 summit on Saturday to seek to “strengthen” a US-drafted plan to end the war
with Russia.
It comes
as Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday that Ukraine faces one of the most
difficult moments in its history, after Donald Trump demanded Kyiv accepts
within days a US-backed “peace plan” that would force it to give up territory
to Russia and make other painful concessions.
Western
allies including France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s chancellor,
Friedrich Merz, and the UK’s Keir Starmer spoke to Zelenskyy on Friday in a
show of solidarity. They reaffirmed their support for Kyiv and said any
agreement to end the conflict had to be genuinely fair and take into account
Ukraine’s own red lines.
The US
president is pursuing an “aggressive timeline” to end the conflict, US
officials indicated, and intends to heap unprecedented pressure on Kyiv. Trump
confirmed on Friday morning that next Thursday – Thanksgiving in the US – would
be an “acceptable” deadline for Zelenskyy to sign the deal, which European and
Ukrainian officials have said amounts to a “capitulation”.
Trump is
also threatening to cut vital intelligence sharing and weapons supplies for
Ukraine if it fails to agree, reports suggest.
We will
bring you updates from the meeting at the G20 summit, plus other Ukraine-Russia
news as it comes in.
Here are
some other key developments:
Vladimir
Putin says Ukraine is being unrealistic if it does not accept the US plan to
end the war, declaring: “Ukraine is against it. Apparently, Ukraine and its
European allies are still under illusions and dream of inflicting a strategic
defeat on Russia on the battlefield”. The positive response from the Russian
president adds weight to the views of European and Ukrainian officials that the
deal amounts to a “capitulation”.
Volodymyr
Zelenskyy has reacted to the deal by saying Ukraine faces one of the most
difficult moments in its history. Agreeing to the US-Russian plan, which would
force it to give up territory and make other painful concessions, could leave
Ukraine “without freedom, dignity and justice”, Zelenskyy said in a sombre
10-minute speech outside the presidential palace on Friday.
EU
foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has warned that how the Ukraine war ends
matters. She said: “Russia’s war against Ukraine is an existential threat to
Europe. We all want this war to end. But how it ends matters. Russia has no
legal right whatsoever to any concessions from the country it invaded.
Ultimately, the terms of any agreement are for Ukraine to decide.”
A
Ukrainian drone attack targeted energy facilities in Russia’s Samara region,
killing two people in the southern city of Syzran, the region’s governor said
on Saturday. The attack was repelled by air defence forces, Vyacheslav
Fedorishchev wrote on Russia’s state-backed Max messenger app.
US
officials and lawmakers are increasingly concerned about a meeting last month
in which representatives of the Trump administration met Kirill Dmitriev, a
Russian envoy who is under US. sanctions, to draft a plan to end the war in
Ukraine, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. The meeting
took place in Miami at the end of October and included special envoy Steve
Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Dmitriev, who
leads the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), one of Russia’s largest
sovereign wealth funds.
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