ZELENSKYY SAYS WILL NOT LIFT MARTIAL LAW IN UKRAINE UNTIL RECEIVING SECURITY GUARANTEES

MOSCOW, Dec 29 (Bernama-Sputnik/RIA Novosti) -- Martial law in Ukraine will be lifted only after Kyiv receives security guarantees, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday, reported Sputnik/RIA Novosti.

On Sunday, US President Donald Trump met Zelenskyy at his residence, Mar-a-Lago, in Florida. Trump said that Europe would take on the bulk of security guarantees for Ukraine, but the US would definitely participate. After the meeting, Zelenskyy said that security guarantees between the US and Ukraine were 100 per cent agreed upon.

"The termination of martial law will occur at the moment when Ukraine obtains security guarantees. Without security guarantees, this war would not truly end. We cannot acknowledge that it has ended ... And what are the security guarantees? It is monitoring by partners, their presence," Zelenskyy was quoted as saying by Ukrainian news outlet Novosti.LIVE.

Zelenskyy also said he wanted to receive security guarantees simultaneously with the signing of a 20-point document on conflict settlement. Moreover, Zelenskyy said that he wanted Western troops to be deployed in Ukraine as part of the security guarantees.

The Kyiv Post newspaper reported earlier in the day, citing an unnamed Western official, that providing security guarantees to Ukraine remained a stumbling block on the path to concluding a deal to settle the Ukrainian conflict.

Since this spring, France, as the co-chair of the so-called coalition of the willing, has been trying to broker a deployment of a multinational "deterrent" contingent to Ukraine. In September, French President Emmanuel Macron said that 26 countries were committed to joining the deployment after a ceasefire is reached in Ukraine.

In 2024, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) said that the West planned to deploy the so-called peacekeeping contingent of about 100,000 in Ukraine to restore its combat capability. The SVR called this scenario a de facto occupation of Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated that there is no point in the presence of foreign military personnel in Ukraine after a sustainable peace agreement. The Russian leader also stressed that Russia would consider any troops on the territory of Ukraine to be legitimate targets.

Since mid-November, the US has been promoting a new peace plan for Ukraine. On December 2,  Putin received US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner at the Kremlin. The US representatives' visit to Russia was related to the discussion of the US peace plan for Ukraine. The Kremlin stated that Russia remained open to negotiations and committed to the Anchorage discussions.

In mid-December, Berlin hosted negotiations on the Ukrainian settlement, involving Witkoff, Kushner and Zelenskyy. Witkoff later reported progress on a 20-point settlement plan. Zelenskyy later announced his willingness to abandon NATO membership aspirations if he received security guarantees from individual countries, including the US.

-- BERNAMA-SPUTNIK/RIA NOVOSTI