What is Zelenskyy’s 10-point peace plan?
The Ukrainian president has been promoting his formula for peace with US President Biden and other leaders.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been actively promoting his 10-point peace plan, discussing it with US President Joe Biden among others, and urging world leaders to hold a global peace summit based on it.
Here are the highlights of his plan and reactions to it:
What is Zelenskyy’s 10-point peace plan?
Zelenskyy first announced his peace formula at a November summit of the Group of 20 (G20) key economies.
The plan calls for:
- Radiation and nuclear safety, focusing on restoring security around Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, Zaporizhzhia in Ukraine, which is now Russian-occupied.
- Food security, including protecting and ensuring Ukraine’s grain exports to the world’s poorest nations.
- Energy security, with a focus on price restrictions on Russian energy resources, as well as aiding Ukraine with restoring its power infrastructure, half of which has been damaged by Russian attacks.
- Release of all prisoners and deportees, including war prisoners and children deported to Russia.
- Restoring Ukraine’s territorial integrity and Russia reaffirming it according to the UN Charter, which Zelenskyy said is “not up to negotiations”.
- Withdrawal of Russian troops and the cessation of hostilities, the restoration of Ukraine’s state borders with Russia.
- Justice, including the establishment of a special tribunal to prosecute Russian war crimes.
- The prevention of ecocide, and the protection of the environment, with a focus on demining and restoring water treatment facilities.
- Prevention of an escalation of conflict and building security architecture in the Euro-Atlantic space, including guarantees for Ukraine.
- Confirmation of the war’s end, including a document signed by the involved parties.
Zelenskyy’s global peace summit proposal
In December, Zelenskyy urged the leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) nations to support his idea for a global peace summit that would focus on the peace plan “as a whole or some specific points in particular”.
What has been the world’s response?
Russia rejected Zelenskyy’s peace proposal this month and reiterated on Tuesday that it would not give up any territory it has taken by force, which is about a fifth of Ukraine, which it says it has annexed.
Zelenskyy has been on a diplomatic drive presenting his plan to leaders including Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose country has taken over the G20 presidency.
The Western world’s support for Ukraine’s military has run into billions of dollars, led by Washington, and nations have rushed to help Kyiv with de-mining and fixing its power infrastructure.
But the response to Zelenskyy’s peace plan and his proposed peace summit has been more cautious.
During the Ukrainian leader’s visit to Washington on December 22, Biden said in public remarks only that he and Zelenskyy “share the exact same vision” for peace and that the United States is committed to ensuring that Ukraine can defend itself.
The G7 leaders said they were committed to bringing peace to Ukraine “in line with its rights enshrined in the UN Charter.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that chances for any peace talks are small any time soon.
“I do believe that the military confrontation will go on, and I think we’ll have still to wait for a moment in which serious negotiations for peace will be possible,” he said in late December.