The outgoing special envoy of US President Donald Trump to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, stated that an agreement to end the war is “very close” and now depends on resolving two key outstanding issues: The future of Ukraine’s Donbas region and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
It should be noted that Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, after eight years of conflict between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces in Donbas, which consists of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The war in Ukraine is the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II and has caused the greatest confrontation between Russia and the West since the Cold War era.
“The last 10 meters to resolve the conflict in Ukraine, those are always the hardest”
US Special Envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg, who is set to leave his position in January, told the Reagan National Defense Forum that efforts to resolve the conflict are in the “last 10 meters,” which, he said, are always the most difficult.
The two main outstanding issues, according to Kellogg, concern territory – primarily the future of Donbas – and the future of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, which is under Russian control.
“If we solve those two issues, I believe the rest will go fairly well,” Kellogg stated. “We’re almost ready. We’re really very close,” Kellogg said.
Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general who served in Vietnam, Panama, and Iraq, said the scale of deaths and injuries caused by the war in Ukraine is “horrific” and unprecedented for a regional war.
He also stated that, overall, Russia and Ukraine have suffered more than 2 million casualties, including dead and wounded, since the war began. Neither Russia nor Ukraine publishes reliable estimates of their losses, Reuters notes.
Moscow claims that Western and Ukrainian estimates exaggerate its losses. Kyiv claims that Moscow exaggerates estimates of Ukraine’s losses.
Russia currently controls 19.2% of Ukraine, including Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, all of Luhansk, more than 80% of Donetsk, about 75% of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, as well as parts of the Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv, and Dnipropetrovsk regions.
Last month, a 28-point American peace plan leaked, causing concern among Ukrainian and European officials, who said the proposal satisfies Moscow’s key demands regarding NATO, Russian control of one-fifth of Ukraine, and restrictions on the Ukrainian military.
This proposal, which according to Russia includes 27 points, has been divided into four different parts, according to the Kremlin. Its exact content has not been made public.
According to initial US proposals, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, whose reactors are currently shut down, would be restarted under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the generated electricity would be distributed equally between Russia and Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that he had a long and “substantial” phone conversation with Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
The Kremlin reported on Friday that it expects Kushner to take on the main work of drafting a possible agreement.
Ukrainian city hit by “massive” Russian attack amid negotiations
Meanwhile, Russia continued its airstrikes against Ukraine during the night, hours after the Ukrainian president said he had a “very constructive” phone conversation with Donald Trump’s negotiating team, following three days of talks in Florida.
The mayor of Kremenchuk said the city came under repeated “massive” attacks.
Russian armed forces launched a combined air raid overnight with kamikaze drones and missiles on the city of Kremenchuk, in Poltava region (central Ukraine), causing disruptions to electricity, heating, and water supply networks, mayor Vitali Maletsky reported early morning via Telegram.
According to reports by Ukrainian news agency RBC-Ukraine, Russian forces used, in addition to “dozens” of drones, hypersonic “Kinzhal” missiles. Powerful explosions were heard.
On the Dnieper River, Kremenchuk is an important industrial center and home to one of Ukraine’s largest oil refineries.
No information about casualties has been released so far and the extent of damage is unclear.
The city of Kremenchuk (215,000 pre-war residents) has repeatedly been targeted by Russian bombings, especially in 2022, when a shopping center was hit, killing 21 people.
The air force repeatedly warned via Telegram during the night about threats of Russian strikes in various regions.
The strikes occurred the day after the American think tank CSIS characterized the third-largest Russian raid of the entire war, on Friday night into Saturday, using by their calculations 653 drones and 51 missiles of various types, primarily targeting electricity production and transmission infrastructure.
Meanwhile, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that it shot down 77 Ukrainian drones in various locations.
