Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told reporters Tuesday that his country will “finalize” a peace plan to end the Russian invasion by November — the month of the scheduled American presidential election.
Zelensky said that he hoped to present the plan to leftist American President Joe Biden and the top two candidates vying to replace him, his Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. He added that Ukraine is also planning to host a second iteration of the “peace summit” hosted by Switzerland in June, which Russia did not participate in and resulted in no significant changes on the battleground.
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Ukraine has faced some form of aggression from Russia for over a decade, since Moscow announced the colonization of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in March 2014. After years of low-level military conflict in the eastern Ukrainian Donbass region between the Ukrainian military and Russian-backed separatists, Russian strongman Vladimir Putin announced that he would deploy the Russian military for a “special operation” in February 2022 to oust Zelensky. That “special operation” led to the “annexation” of four other regions of Ukraine — both Donbass regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, as well as Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — and remains ongoing to this day.
The Ukrainian military appeared to change the momentum of the war in early August by invading uncontested Russian territory in the Kursk region, and threatening neighboring Bryansk and Belgorod. Ukraine continues to control significant territory in Kursk, according to both Russian and Ukrainian estimates, but Russia launched a massive nationwide attack on the Ukrainian power grid on Monday that has limited Kyiv’s ability to expand its attacks.
Zelensky emphasized in his remarks during a press conference on Tuesday that his administration is looking to end the war as soon as possible.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrives for a news conference during the ‘Ukraine 2024 Independence Forum’, Kyiv. (OLEKSANDR KLYMENKO / Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
“The main point of this plan is to force Russia to end the war. And I want that very much — (that it would be) fair for Ukraine,” Zelensky said, according to Reuters, referring to the plan he expects to debut in November. He nonetheless suggested that dialogue with Russia would not be part of the peace plan: “There can be no compromises with Putin, dialogue today is in principle empty and meaningless because he does not want to end the war diplomatically.”
Zelensky signed a decree in October 2022 that outlawed dialogue with Russia so long as Vladimir Putin remained at the helm of the country.
On the peace plan in development, Zelensky said it would address energy safety, food security, and the release of Ukrainians imprisoned or forcibly moved into Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures during his meeting with Murmansk region Governor Andrei Chibis at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, on August 6, 2024. (Gavriil Grigirov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
“All three points will be addressed, and the complete document will be developed — I believe we will manage to finalize it in time for November. This is our task: to develop the document as a preparatory step or stage for the second Peace Summit,” Zelensky explained, as per a translation by his presidential office.
While expecting the plan to be finalized in November, Zelensky suggested he would show a version of this plan to Biden sooner — in September, when he expects to travel to New York for the United Nations General Assembly.
“The success of this plan depends on him,” Zelensky said of Biden. “Whether they will give us what is in this plan or not. Whether we will be free to use what will be in this plan or not.”
The Ukrainian president added that he would ensure that Trump and Harris were “familiarized” with the details of the plan so that any incoming American administration would be fully informed.
His remarks on Tuesday were not the first time that Zelensky teased the publishing of a comprehensive plan to end the Russian invasion. He similarly said that his government would develop what has described as an “action plan for peace” by November in July. At the time, the news of Biden dropping out of the presidential race, and guaranteeing a new chief executive by January, was fresh, and Zelensky had recently spoken to former President Trump.
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“Ukraine will always be grateful to the United States for its help in strengthening our ability to resist Russian terror. Russian attacks on our cities and villages continue every day,” Zelensky said in a statement on social media following his phone call with Trump. “We agreed with President Trump to discuss at a personal meeting what steps can make peace fair and truly lasting.”
Zelensky later said that he had invited Trump to Kyiv and Trump “told [Zelensky] he was available for any questions, and that [he has] his phone number.”
While Biden has approved lavish amounts of funding for the Ukrainian war effort, his relationship with Zelensky has been historically challenging and appeared to hit rock bottom in July 2021, when Biden lifted sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project that would have connected Russia to Europe. Zelensky exploded in an interview with Axios in which he said that he found out about the end of the sanctions in the media and was “unpleasantly surprised” by the news, as Biden had given “all the signals” to Zelensky he would not lift them.
Seven months later, Biden publicly stated that he would not intervene in the event that Putin engaged in a “minor incursion” into Ukraine. In February, the full-scale invasion began.
More recently, Biden has offered little moral support for Zelensky’s peace efforts. Biden himself skipped the Switzerland peace summit to attend a fundraiser with Hollywood actor George Clooney, who shortly thereafter published an article in the New York Times pressuring Biden to drop out of the presidential race.