President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that the United States is pushing for Ukraine to withdraw its forces from the Donetsk region to establish a “free economic zone” in the Kyiv-held parts of eastern Ukraine that Moscow wants to control.

Zelenskyy confirmed on Thursday that his country had presented the US with a 20-point set of counter-proposals for peace amid discussions on security guarantees with top US officials, making it clear that any territorial concessions would have to be put to a referendum in Ukraine.

“They see it as Ukrainian troops withdrawing from the Donetsk region, and the compromise is supposedly that Russian troops will not enter this part of … region. They do not know who will govern this territory,” said the Ukrainian president.

He said that Russia had referred to

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