Moscow reviews new 20-point peace plan agreed by US and Ukraine

Ukraine won some limited concessions in the latest version of a US-led draft plan to end the Russian offensive, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has revealed, though key questions remain over territory and whether Moscow would accept the new terms.

The 20-point plan, agreed on by US and Ukrainian negotiators, is being reviewed by Moscow. The Kremlin is analysing documents on ending the conflict in Ukraine that were brought to Moscow by special envoy Kirill Dmitriev from the United States, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.

The Kremlin has previously shown little willingness to abandon its hardline territorial demands for the full withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the east.

Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Maria Zakharova called Bloomberg's report about Russia adjusting the peace plan for Ukraine a fake.

"This so-called media outlet doesn't have reliable sources close to the Kremlin, only unreliable ones. And the phrase about 'closeness to the Kremlin' is just a cover for a fake story," she said.

Earlier, Bloomberg reported, citing a person close to the Kremlin, that Russia would seek key changes to the latest US peace plan to end the conflict in Ukraine, including additional restrictions on Kyiv's military.

Demilitarized zones

Zelenskyy conceded there were some points in the document that he did not like, but that Kyiv had succeeded in removing immediate requirements for Ukraine to withdraw from the Donetsk region or that land seized by Moscow's army would be recognized as Russian.

Nevertheless, the Ukrainian leader still indicated the proposal would pave the way for Kyiv to pull some troops back, including from the 20 percent of the Donetsk region that it controls, where demilitarized zones would be established.

It also got rid of demands that Kyiv must legally renounce its bid for NATO membership.

Zelenskyy presented the plan during a two-hour briefing with journalists, reading from a highlighted and annotated version.

"In the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions, the line of troop deployment as of the date of this agreement is de facto recognized as the line of contact," Zelenskyy said of the latest version.

"A working group will convene to determine the redeployment of forces necessary to end the conflict, as well as to define the parameters of potential future special economic zones," he added.

This appears to suggest the plan opens the way for, but delays, options that Ukraine was previously reluctant to consider - a withdrawal of troops and the creation of demilitarized zones.

"We are in a situation where the Russians want us to withdraw from the Donetsk region, while the Americans are trying to find a way," Zelenskyy said.

"They are looking for a demilitarized zone or a free economic zone, meaning a format that could satisfy both sides," he continued.

Death and destruction

US President Trump is trying to broker an end to the four-year conflict, triggered by Russia's 2022 offensive.

Tens of thousands have been killed, eastern Ukraine decimated and millions forced to flee their homes.

Russian troops are advancing on the front and hammering cities and Ukraine's energy grid with nightly missile and drone barrages.

Moscow's defense ministry said it had captured another Ukrainian settlement in the southern Zaporizhzhia region.

In 2022, Russia said to have annexed four Ukrainian regions - Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia - in addition to the Crimean peninsula which it seized in 2014.

President Vladimir Putin has shown no willingness to compromise, doubling down on his hardline demands for a sweeping Ukrainian withdrawal and a string of political concessions that Kyiv and its European backers have previously cast as capitulation.

Ukraine's NATO membership

On NATO, Zelenskyy said: "It is the choice of NATO members whether to have Ukraine or not. Our choice has been made. We moved away from the proposed changes to the Constitution of Ukraine that would have prohibited Ukraine from joining NATO."

Nevertheless, the prospects of Ukraine being admitted to the bloc appear slim-to-none, as it has been ruled out by Washington.

Moscow has repeatedly said NATO membership for Ukraine is unacceptable, presenting it as one of the reasons it launched its offensive in the first place.

The plan sees joint US-Ukrainian-Russian management of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, occupied by Russian troops. Zelenskyy said he does not want any Russian oversight of the facility.

He also said Ukraine would hold presidential elections only after an agreement is signed - something both Putin and Trump have been pushing for.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Moscow was "formulating its position" and declined to comment on the specifics of the latest plan. 

'Ecological disaster'

Meanwhile, a sunflower oil spill, caused by Russian aerial bombardments, has contaminated the shoreline around the southern Ukrainian city of Odessa, killing wildlife and triggering warnings from conservationists.

Odessa has been targeted with some of the heaviest strikes of the conflict in recent weeks, in what Ukrainian officials have slammed as an attempt to hobble Ukraine's maritime network and its vital agricultural exports.

An AFP journalist in the city filmed frothy brown pools of sunflower oil on the shore and slicks atop the water. 

Volunteers were scooping up sand and pulling dead birds out of the water.

"The cause was damage to sunflower oil tanks as a result of massive enemy attacks on port infrastructure, causing some of the oil to spill," Governor Oleg Kiper said in a statement.

The Pivdenny port in the region was temporarily closed to help with the clean-up.

Marine ecology expert Vladyslav Balinsky called it an "ecological disaster."

Russian oil tanks hit

Ukrainian long-range drones hit two oil product tanks in the Russian port of Temryuk and a gas processing plant in Russia's Orenburg, an official at the SBU security service told Reuters news agency. 

"The SBU continues to target facilities in the Russian oil and gas sector systematically. Each of these strikes hits the Russian budget, reduces foreign currency revenues, and complicates logistics and fuel supplies for the army," the official said.

Flames covered an area of about 2,000 square meters, authorities at the Krasnodar operational headquarters said on the Telegram messaging app.

Russian air defense units downed 25 Moscow-bound Ukrainian drones throughout the day, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.

Sobyanin, in a series of posts on the Telegram messaging app, said the drones were repelled over a period of about 23 hours. Emergency crews were examining fragments where they hit the ground, but no damage was reported.

Two of the four major airports servicing the capital limited operations for a time, Russia's civil aviation authority said on Telegram.

Russia's Defense Ministry said that its forces had captured the settlement of Sviato-Pokrovske in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, Russian news agencies reported, citing the ministry.