European allies back Ukraine amid 'Moscow-favouring' US peace plan
發佈日期: 2025-11-23 21:18
TVB News
Ukraine's Western allies rallied around the country as they pushed to revise a US peace plan seen as favouring Moscow.
A Ukrainian delegation, bolstered by representatives from France, Germany and the UK, is preparing for direct talks with Washington in Switzerland.
Family and friends mourn at the funeral of a Ukrainian soldier who died on the battlefield early this month.
Forty-one-year-old machine gunner Ruslan Zhyhunov was killed in Kramatorsk in the Donbas, one of 25,000 Ukrainian solders who have died over the past month, according to US President Donald Trump.
Trump's latest peace plan, cautiously accepted by Moscow, seeks to end the killing by urging Ukraine to concede territory to Russia, something Kyiv has consistently refused to do.
Trump's 28-point plan, without Ukrainian and European input, largely favours Russia.
European allies at the Group of 20 summit in South Africa said they plan to take it up with US officials in Geneva this week.
"It is important, to keep firmly in mind what we're all trying to achieve, which is just and lasting peace," said British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. "But also underpinning that is the principle that I've always adhered to that all matters about Ukraine must be determined in the end, by Ukraine and, that's why we're talking, very regularly with the Ukrainians."
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said peace can only be achieved with the unconditional consent of Ukraine and Europe, because it is a war on the European continent.
"Ukraine, the US, and the Europeans want peace, but we want a robust and long standing peace," said French President Emmanuel Macron. "But at the same time as what is at stake is obviously Ukrainian sovereignty and European security, it's normal to have both the Ukrainians and the Europeans on the table to finalise this plan. So this is exactly what we will do tomorrow and the day after in order to make a common plan."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he has appointed a delegation to discuss with Washington the US plan.
In Kyiv, some Ukrainians marked the "great famine" that Soviet leader Josef Stalin imposed in the early 1930s, leading to millions of deaths.
This is a tragic day, said Olesia Stasiuk, of the National Association of Researchers of the Holodomor Genocide of Ukrainians.
Once again we feel we are on the brink, either the Ukrainian people will exist or they will not.
