By Andrew Gray
BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Europeans have submitted a modified version of the United States’ peace plan for Ukraine that pushes back on proposed limits to Kyiv’s armed forces and territorial concessions, according to a document seen by Reuters on Sunday.
The document, prepared for talks on the plan in Geneva, proposes that Ukraine’s military be capped at 800,000 “in peacetime” rather than a blanket cap of 600,000 proposed by the U.S. plan.
It also says “negotiations on territorial swaps will start from the Line of Contact”, rather than pre-determining that certain areas should be recognised as “de facto Russian”, as the U.S. plan suggests.
The counter-proposal was drafted by the so-called European E3 powers – Britain, France and Germany, a source familiar with the document said.
The document takes the U.S. proposal as its basis, but goes through point by point with suggested deletions or changes.
It proposes that Ukraine receive a security guarantee from the United States similar to NATO’s Article 5 clause.
It pushes back on the U.S. proposal for the use of Russian assets frozen in the West, primarily in the European Union.
“Ukraine will be fully reconstructed and compensated financially, including through Russian sovereign assets that will remain frozen until Russia compensates damage to Ukraine,” the document says.
The U.S. plan proposed that $100 billion of frozen Russian funds would be invested in a “US-led effort to reconstruct and invest in Ukraine” and that the U.S. would receive 50% of the profits from that venture.
The U.S. also proposed that the balance would be invested in a “separate US-Russia investment vehicle”.
(Reporting by Andrew Gray)
