Vision of peace or truce to take shape by early February - Ukrainian politician

“The Russians have been repeating the same mantra since about June, when Putin first stated it, and it hasn’t changed,” Rybachuk said. “They may rephrase their demands or present them differently, but they consistently repeat that what matters to them isn’t just a truce. What they want is to achieve the goal of “the special military operation”: disarming Ukraine, keeping Ukraine out of NATO, making Russian the state language, and strengthening the Russian Orthodox Church - these are things they’ve repeated over and over. None of this aligns with what the American side has been promising us.”

He added that Keith Kellogg and other members of Trump’s team have expressed dissatisfaction with a mere ceasefire. The Americans are advocating for a just, lasting, and guaranteed peace in Ukraine - one that allows Ukraine to determine what it considers necessary for its future.

“These two positions don’t align at all right now,” Rybachuk said. “We might hear various proposals up until early February, but something more concrete will only begin to take shape after the inauguration. That’s when the U.S. will have gathered its responses. I believe that, alongside Ukraine, the United States is engaging in a multi-level dialogue with Russia. There’s a suspicion that Putin has already spoken to Trump, as they frequently deny it, which raises some doubts. Clearly, there’s not much to say publicly yet, so we’ll likely hear different versions of how things will unfold. In my opinion, we’ll start to see a clearer picture of a future peace or truce around early February.”

• Ukrainian National Guard Reserve Major Oleksii Hetman said that the U.S. and other countries were attempting to conduct preliminary negotiations with Ukraine and Russia to offer compromise options for halting the war.