Kushner: The territorial issue remains the most difficult in the Ukraine negotiations
U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, stated that the territorial issue remains the most difficult in negotiations to resolve the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. He clarified that the parties’ positions continue to diverge.
“The most difficult issue is still the territorial issue. I think it’s obvious that it is partly determined by what is happening on the battlefield,” Jared Kushner said at a Ukrainian forum, in which he participated via video conference.
Jared Kushner and Steve Whitcoff flew to Moscow on September 5 for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. At the forum, the U.S. president’s son-in-law added that following the meeting with the Russian side, some new ideas for resolving the conflict had emerged. Mr. Kushner expressed hope that they would be able to discuss these ideas in trilateral talks in the near future.
The disagreement concerns not only the demarcation line but also control over the territories. Russia demands the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the Donbas regions controlled by Kyiv and insists on the so-called “Anchorage Agreements”: these entail the transfer of the entire eastern part of the Donetsk region to Ukraine, with a freeze on hostilities along the current lines of contact in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. Ukraine rejects the withdrawal of troops from fortified areas that the Russian military has been unable to capture during the fighting that has continued since 2014.
The U.S. side is working on a different mechanism: to transform the disputed territory of the Donbas into a demilitarized or free economic zone under special administration. According to Ukrainian sources, because of Kyiv’s refusal to withdraw troops from Donbas, the political track of the negotiations remains at an impasse, while the military track has discussed the separation of forces, mechanisms for monitoring the ceasefire, and criteria for ceasefire violations.
