Although Zelensky nodded and gave up aspirations for NATO membership on Sunday, he is unwilling to retreat from his positions in the east unless Russia does the same. Zelensky has called it fair for the two sides to stay on the current front line and then resolve disputed territorial issues through negotiations.
If a buffer zone were to be created, Ukraine said, there should be no soldiers in it, but only an international or police mission, and both armies should withdraw equally far away. Moscow, for its part, is threatening to conquer Donbas militarily if the invaded state does not hand over the whole of Donbas to it by agreement.
Brussels, together with Kiev, has prepared a 20-point set of amendments to the White House agreement. The document is already on the table in Washington.
However, during a trip to Berlin on Sunday, Zelensky stressed that the Ukrainian authorities cannot afford to consider that the current peace process could fail.
Dispute over frozen Russian assets
Alongside the peace debate, the EU is also tackling what Ukraine will ever survive another years of war on. The Commission is proposing a "reparation loan" backed by some €210 billion of Russian state assets, €185 billion of which are held by the Belgian custodian Euroclear.
Europe decided by qualified majority on Friday that Russian assets would remain frozen indefinitely. In doing so, it bypassed veto rights from Hungary and Slovakia.
Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever calls the use of Russian assets "fundamentally flawed", argues the high legal risks for his country and calls for broader guarantees from other member states.
He is joined by Italy, Malta and Bulgaria, which in a letter urged the European Commission to look for less risky ways of financing. Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary also rejected the plan.
This weakens the chances of leaders reaching a political agreement at Thursday's summit.Several diplomats warn that even if the opposition of these countries is not enough to formally block the scheme, it increases the political cost of the whole plan.
At the same time, the alternative is virtually non-existent: without the use of Russian assets, the Union would have to consider a new common debt, which some member states reject, or Ukraine would be left relying only on fragmented aid from national budgets.
German officials therefore refer to the decision on the 'reparation loan' as one that 'will determine whether the EU remains a relevant actor', and recall that failure to finance Kiev would also weaken the Union's position in the Washington-led peace negotiations themselves.
The Russian Central Bank's lawsuit
European diplomacy chief Kaja Kallas said on Monday that politicians would not leave Thursday's summit until they reached results on funding for Ukraine.
"The most credible option is a loan from reparations and that is the option we are working on," Kallas told reporters.
Although negotiations on the reparations loan are complicated, Kallas said the EU still has a few days to reach a compromise. She stressed that the involvement of Belgium, where most of Russia's reserves are concentrated through the Euroclear system, is crucial.
On security guarantees for Ukraine, Kallas said that "it cannot just be a piece of paper, but real troops and concrete military capabilities".
On Monday, the Russian Central Bank filed a lawsuit seeking damages of around 18.2 trillion rubles (€195 billion) from Euroclear.
The Moscow court is expected to rule in favour of the Russian central bank in an expedited procedure, which would then allow it to seek to enforce the ruling in foreign jurisdictions.
(politico, reuters, sie, est)
