By Daryna Krasnolutska | Bloomberg News
Kyiv hosted national security advisers from its top allies for talks on security guarantees and economic support for Ukraine as part of the global effort to end Russia’s four-year invasion.
More than a dozen NSAs from European countries, Canada and offices of the European Council, European Commission and NATO held talks focused on three tracks on Saturday.
“One track will go over the documents, in the second track we will work on a prosperity package, and the third is more military and political issues,” Rustem Umerov, a top Ukrainian envoy, said as he opened the gathering in Ukraine’s capital.
U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, were expected to attend the discussions online.
Speaking of the economic track at Saturday’s talks, Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko said Ukraine estimates a 10-year rebuilding effort toward sustainable growth would cost some $800 billion.
“We aim to mobilize these resources through public capital, grants and loans, as well as private investment in infrastructure, energy, industry, and human capital development,” she said on X.
Separately, lawmaker David Arakhamiya, the head of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s party in Ukraine’s parliament, told reporters that Kyiv may finish drafting a referendum on peace proposals by the end of February.
Such a ballot should be held together with a presidential election to maximize turnout — but only once a ceasefire is in place, Arakhamiya told reporters. “Combining a presidential election with this referendum gives us hope that as many people as possible in Ukraine and abroad will vote,” he said.
The U.S. has pushed Ukraine to hold an election, postponed from 2024 because the country is under martial law. Zelenskyy said last month he expects Moscow to interfere with any vote, which faces hurdles from Ukrainians who’ve fled their homes internally or abroad, or who are in areas occupied by Russia.
Security guarantees are one of major points in the talks, with Kyiv and European allies saying a strong deterrent is needed to ensure that Russia doesn’t attack Ukraine again after a potential peace deal.
Zelenskyy, who’s also negotiating a bilateral security deal with the U.S., told reporters that he’s asked Trump for security guarantees that could stretch as long as half a century. Current proposals set out a 15-year term with the possibility for an extension.
In a call on Saturday with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Zelenskyy “discussed the ongoing work to ensure a multinational force could deploy to Ukraine in the days following a ceasefire,” according to a readout from Downing Street.
Leaders of the so-called Coalition of the Willing, a group of countries that support Ukraine, plan to meet on Jan. 6 in Paris for talks. “We are also getting ready for meetings in the United States,” Zelenskyy said Saturday on X, without providing more detail.
The event in Kyiv follows a flurry of diplomatic activity as Trump looks to secure an end to the Russia’s war in Ukraine — a conflict he once pledged to halt on his first day back in office.
So far, Russian President Vladimir Putin hasn’t indicated any willingness to end the invasion, which Moscow conceived of as a “Special Military Operation” in 2022 to last days or weeks. Almost four years later, Putin is sticking to his maximalist demands, including for Ukrainian troops to withdraw from areas in the nation’s east which Russia has failed to seize by force over more than a decade.
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