On December 31, in a special New Year's Eve message posted on his personal Telegram account, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shared important information about the country's diplomatic process. He said that negotiators have made significant progress, with the peace agreement document between the two countries currently 90% complete.
However, the leader quickly extinguished excessive optimism with a serious warning about the remaining 10%. According to Mr. Zelensky, this small unfinished percentage is of great weight.
He emphasized that these 10% contain the most core and thorny terms. It will be a factor determining the fate of peace, determining the survival of Ukraine and directly affecting the future security of the whole of Europe.
The Ukrainian President affirmed Kiev's consistent stance of wanting to end the conflict as soon as possible.
A sustainable agreement, in Kiev's view, must be accompanied by strong international security commitments. These guarantees play a key role in deterring and preventing Russia from having the opportunity to repeat military attacks in the future.
Regarding the international context, the US is trying to play an intermediary role in building a framework agreement with the participation of both Moscow and Kiev. However, diplomatic efforts are still deadlocked on the most difficult issue: post-conflict territorial demarcation.
Russia, under the direction of President Vladimir Putin, is putting heavy pressure to seize full control of the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine as an indispensable part of the agreement. This is considered the biggest bottleneck that prevents the final 10% of the treaty from being completed.
Responding to this demand, President Zelensky expressed deep skepticism about the enemy's goodwill. He frankly declared that he does not believe Russian troops will stop at the Donbass border if Ukrainian forces agree to withdraw and make concessions.
The Ukrainian leader sarcastically compared the promises of "just withdraw from Donbass, everything will end" to being actually just deception.
