00:00The Trump administration has signaled to President Volodymyr Zelensky that Ukraine must give up land and surrender some weapons as part of a U.S.-drafted framework to end the war with Russia.
00:12That's according to two people familiar with the matter who requested not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the talks.
00:19The sources also said the proposals included cutting the size of Ukraine's armed forces, among other things.
00:26They added that the U.S. wants Ukraine to accept the main points of the framework.
00:31Such a plan would represent a major setback for Ukraine, as it faces further Russian territorial gains in the eastern part of the country,
00:40and with Zelensky tackling a corruption scandal in which Parliament dismissed the energy and justice ministers on Wednesday.
00:48A senior Ukrainian official earlier told Reuters that Kiev had received signals about a set of U.S. proposals to end the war,
00:55and that Washington had discussed them with Russia.
00:58The source said Ukraine has had no role in preparing the proposals.
01:02Zelensky, who was holding talks in Turkey on Wednesday with President Tayyip Erdogan,
01:07is due to meet U.S. Army officials in Kiev on Thursday.
01:11Andrew Denieri, associate director of the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center,
01:15who spoke with Reuters before details of these proposals came out,
01:19viewed the upcoming talks as a positive sign.
01:22Having an American presence in Kiev this week, I think, signals continued American engagement with the Ukrainians
01:29and hopefully a willingness to engage, listen, and work with the Ukrainians
01:35as the Americans try to facilitate a durable peace deal that they've been working on for many months,
01:42with, unfortunately, without a ton of success, in large part because the Russian side doesn't actually want a real peace.
01:47No face-to-face talks have taken place between Kiev and Moscow since a meeting in Istanbul in July,
01:54and Russian forces have pressed on with Moscow's nearly four-year-old war in Ukraine,
01:59killing 25 people in strikes overnight.
02:02Russian President Vladimir Putin has long demanded that Ukraine give up plans to join the U.S.-led NATO military alliance
02:10and withdraw its troops from four provinces Moscow claims as part of Russia.
02:15Moscow has given no indication that it has dropped any of those demands,
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