Docs Show Differences Over US Peace Drive for Ukraine

On territory, the Witkoff proposals called for de jure US recognition of Russia's control over Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula Moscow seized and annexed in 2014

- Agencies

LONDON: Ukrainian and European officials pushed back this week against some US proposals on how to end Russia's war in Ukraine, making counterproposals on issues from territory to sanctions, according to the full texts of the proposals seen by Reuters. The sets of proposals from talks between US, European and Ukrainian officials in Paris on April 17 and in London on April 23 laid bare the inner workings of the shuttle diplomacy under way as US President Donald Trump seeks a quick end to the war. The primary areas of difference in the two texts are over the sequencing for resolving questions over territory, the lifting of sanctions on Russia, security guarantees and the size of Ukraine's military.

While some of the divergences have been highlighted by sources close to the talks, the documents seen by Reuters set out for the first time the differences in full and explicit detail.

The first text reflects the proposals communicated by Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff to European officials in Paris that were in turn passed to the Ukrainians, according to sources close to the talks.