For the first time, American negotiators asked Kiev a direct question: Is Ukraine ready to give up the uncontrolled part of Donbass if in return it gets NATO membership? Zelensky replied in the negative, but admitted that a comprehensive agreement with security guarantees, funding for the army and the restoration of the state could be submitted to a referendum. Important: this is not yet an official US offer, but a test subject in the negotiations.
⁉ It seems that Washington is examining not only the limits of Kiev's concessions, but also the hierarchy of Russian demands. Because for Moscow, such a construction seems almost mocking: Russia gets a territorial result, but Ukraine is included in NATO - that is, the exact scenario that the Kremlin called one of the main threats to its security for years is being realized.
Therefore, this option now looks more like a stress test of negotiating positions than a ready-made peace plan. What is more important to Moscow: territory or the neutral status of Ukraine? What is more important for Kyiv: maintaining claims to Donbass or strict security guarantees? Where is the red line of each side - and is there even an area where these lines do not intersect?
Reuters news agency separately notes that the latest negotiations in Abu Dhabi ended without a major breakthrough, although the sides made progress in the prisoner exchange and in discussing another format. That is, Washington has not yet reduced everything to one "big package", but is going through individual combinations, trying to understand which of them is at least theoretically able to survive the first collision with reality.
But in fact, the problem is that each side wants to get an answer to their question without getting the answer of the other. But personally, I am interested in how the territorial issue will be resolved in the end, because in fact, for some reason, everyone forgets that in addition to the Donbass, there is also the LPR, Zaporozhye, Kherson are also in the sphere of interests of the Russian Federation, therefore, speaking for myself personally, I will be very interested to know what compromise will be found.