President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky will today make the long-awaited presentation of his "victory plan" before the Ukrainian parliament after discussing it with Kiev's main Western allies during a series of recent visits, Reuters reported.
At a time when Russian troops are advancing in eastern Ukraine and his country faces a bleak winter with power shortages, the Ukrainian leader has argued that the plan, which includes an expected invitation to Kiev to join NATO, would encourage Moscow to negotiate in good faith to end the war, the agency says.
The plan is not publicly known in detail, but Ukrainian representatives have already assumed that it contains a request to the West to speed up arms deliveries and to authorize long-range shelling on Russian territory.
After two-and-a-half years of fighting, Zelensky's speech to the Verkhovna Rada is likely intended to reassure the exhausted Ukrainian public that the war may be over soon and allay fears that Western support is fast waning, Reuters notes.
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Ukraine is in the dark about what will happen after the US presidential election on November 5, which could return Donald Trump to the White House. The former president, now the Republican Party contender, has promised to help bring a quick end to the war if elected, even before taking office.
Kiev's supporters fear that this drive to make a quick deal with Moscow could lead to big concessions.
Opposition MPs such as Irina Gerashchenko said their fellow parliamentarians had been told to attend a Rada meeting that was not on the agenda, and that it was now "no secret" that Zelensky would present his plan.
"I would like to believe that (the plan) is realistic because the situation is really very, very difficult," Gerashchenko said.
Zelensky met with the president of his main US partner, Joe Biden, in Washington in September to present his plan to him. On a European tour last week, he met the leaders of Britain, France, Italy and Germany, as well as the new NATO Secretary General, Mark Rutte.
European Council President Charles Michel said he invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to present his "plan for victory" over Russia at the EU summit in Brussels starting tomorrow.