What each side wants from a peace agreement

The future of Ukraine is the focus of the Munich Security Conference (MSC), a few days after a phone call between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in which they agreed to begin negotiations to end the war of Ukraine.

When describing the call earlier this week as “great,” Trump said there was a “good possibility of finishing that horrible and very bloody war.”

The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, warned that his country should not remain out of any peace conversation.

The European allies seemed surprised by the nature of the call, with the French president Emmanuel Macron warning that any peace agreement that would imply capitular to Russia would end “bad for all.”

It is not yet clear when peace negotiations could begin, but when they do problems around the territory, the security and future of Ukraine in NATO will be among the key issues for discussion. This is where the different sides are.

Moscow currently controls around a fifth of the territory of Ukraine, mainly in the south and the east.

After the overthrow of the Ukrainian President of Ukraine in 2014, Russia attached the Peninsula of the Black Sea of ​​Crimea and supported the pro-ruse separatists in bloody struggles in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

The conflict then exploded in the total war almost three years after the large -scale invasion of Russia.

Moscow’s attempts to seize the capital, Kyiv, were frustrated, but since then the Russian forces have slowly expanded their territorial control, mainly in the east.

The Ukrainian forces, backed by weapons and teams of the allies of the United States and Europe, have made those advances as difficult as possible and, sometimes, they have been able to resume the territory, as well as organize a counteroffensive in Western Russia in the Russia .

Ukraine has always insisted that any peace agreement must include the complete withdrawal of the Russian troops of Ukraine back to the borders prior to 2014, including Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk.

“We will never recognize the occupied territories as Russians,” Zelensky said at a press conference during the MSC.

Russia, on the other hand, has formally annexed four regions of the east and south of Ukraine and wants them to be recognized as part of Russia, despite not having control of all territory in those regions.

In an interview With the guardianZelensky suggested that the territory controlled by Russian in Ukraine could be changed to territory seized by Ukraine in the western region of Kursk of Russia as part of a peace agreement. However, the Kremlin quickly ruled out.

Until recently, the western allies of Ukraine Standing for Zelensky’s position That all Ukraine, including Crimea, must be returned.

But the new Secretary of Defense of the United States, Pete Hegseth, poured cold water about those hopes, saying at a summit in February to achieve borders prior to 2014 was an “unrealistic objective.”

“Pursuing this illusory objective will only prolong war and cause more suffering,” he said.

Ukraine wants to join NATO, arguing that the Western Military Alliance, in which members commit to defend themselves if they are attacked, is the best way to guarantee their safety.

For kyiv, Russia’s large -scale invasion is proof that only NATO membership can guarantee its safety.

However, Russia has constantly opposed the idea that Ukraine becomes a member, fearing that he will bring NATO forces too close to their borders.

When he arrived for the MSC, Zelensky said that Ukraine trusted NATO’s security guarantees, before adding that he thought that membership would be “the cheapest option for everyone.”

Europe needs to join around Ukraine to protect, he added.

NATO members have constantly argued that Ukraine should become a NATO member in the future, with the United Kingdom Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, telling Zelensky that the country is in “an irreversible path” towards membership.

But those guarantees are now less solid, after the United States Secretary of Defense minimized the probability of being a NATO member for Ukraine in any peace agreement.

“The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic result of a negotiated agreement,” said Hegseth.

Zelensky has said that previous discussions with the president of the United States, Donald Trump, “are definitely not enough to form a plan” for peace.

Speaking when he reached the MSC, he said that the signs from the United States were “strong” but “varied.”

Hegesh said that Trump was the “a man in the world” capable of gathering both parties and insisted on the American attempts to negotiate peace “certainly not a betrayal” of the Ukrainian soldiers fighting against the invaded Russian forces.

Meanwhile, the American vice president said that sending troops to Ukraine is “still on the table” if Russia does not negotiate a peaceful peace agreement.

“The president is not entering this with glasses,” JD Vance said to the He told Wall Street Journal.

In October, Zelensky He presented his victory plan to the Parliament of Ukrainewhich included key points such as the NATO membership, the joint protection of the critical natural resources of the United States and the EU, and the containment of Russia through a non -nuclear strategic disjussion pack deployed in the Ukrainian soil.

The president of the United States at that time, Joe Biden, received an informative session on this plan, as well as the then presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

It is not clear if any part of Zelensky’s plans will be carried out to peace conversations, but Hesgeth warned that there will be no US troops in the field of Ukraine in any future security agreement.

Zelensky told The Guardian that he does not believe that security guarantees without the participation of the United States work.

United Kingdom Defense Sources cited In the Times newspaper Affirm that the United States could provide some form of air defense – Possibly patriotic missiles – To a peacekeeping force in Ukraine in exchange for access to minerals.