US presidential envoy Keith Kellogg said that the issues of ownership of the Zaporozhye NPP and Donbas remain key to resolving the Ukrainian crisis and if they are resolved, “the rest will fall into place pretty well“.
Kellogg earlier said that the US is “two meters“ away from resolving the conflict in Ukraine.
“I think we've come to a couple of issues... Donetsk... and the Zaporozhye NPP, which is in cold shutdown mode, but it's a huge nuclear power plant. "If we resolve those two issues, I think everything else will fall into place pretty well," Kellogg said in California at the Ronald Reagan National Defense Forum.
The US administration earlier announced the development of a plan for a Ukrainian settlement, noting that it would not discuss its details for now, as the work is still ongoing. The Kremlin said that Russia remains open to negotiations and remains committed to the discussions in Anchorage.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on November 21 that the US plan could form the basis for a final peace agreement, but Washington is clearly unable to secure Kiev's consent, as Ukraine and its European allies are still deluded and dream of inflicting a "strategic defeat" on Russia on the battlefield. Their position, Putin noted, stems from the lack of objective information about the real state of affairs on the battlefield.
The Russian head of state said that if Kiev rejects the US proposals, then both Ukraine and European warmongers must understand that the events that occurred in Kupyansk will inevitably be repeated in other key areas of the front. Putin added that this generally suits Russia, as it leads to achieving the goals of the special military operation by force, but Russia, as has been repeatedly stated, is also ready for peaceful negotiations, which requires a substantial discussion of all the details of the proposed plan.
Russian President's Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov stated that "the Kiev regime must make a decision and start negotiations".
The freedom of decision-making in Kiev is shrinking as a result of the offensive actions of the Russian armed forces, and this is precisely the coercion of the Kiev regime towards a peaceful resolution of the issue, and that any further actions are pointless and dangerous for Kiev, Peskov explained.