WRAPUP 3-Ukraine backs 'essence' of peace deal with Russia but sensitive issues linger

By Idrees Ali and Tom Balmforth

WASHINGTON/KYIV, Nov 25 (Reuters) - Ukraine on Tuesday signalled support for the framework of a peace deal with Russia but stressed that sensitive issues needed to be fixed at a meeting between President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and U.S. President Donald Trump.

Kyiv's message hinted that an intense diplomatic push by the Trump administration could be yielding some fruit but any optimism could be short-lived, especially as Russia stressed it would not let any deal stray too far from its own objectives.

U.S. and Ukrainian negotiators held talks on the latest U.S.-backed peace plan in Geneva on Sunday. U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll then met on Monday and Tuesday with Russian officials in Abu Dhabi, a spokesperson for Driscoll said.

U.S. and Ukrainian officials have been trying to narrow the gaps between them over the plan to end Europe's deadliest and most devastating conflict since World War Two, with Ukraine wary of being strong-armed into accepting a deal largely on the Kremlin's terms, including territorial concessions.

"Ukraine - after Geneva - supports the framework's essence, and some of the most sensitive issues remain as points for the discussion between presidents," a Ukrainian official said.

Zelenskiy could visit the United States in the next few days to finalise a deal with Trump, Kyiv's national security chief Rustem Umerov said, though no such trip was confirmed from the U.S. side.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on X that over the past week the U.S. had made "tremendous progress towards a peace deal by bringing both Ukraine and Russia to the table". She added: "There are a few delicate, but not insurmountable, details that must be sorted out and will require further talks between Ukraine, Russia, and the United States."

Oil prices extended an earlier decline after reports of Ukraine potentially agreeing to a war-ending deal.

Underlining the high stakes for Ukraine, its capital Kyiv was hit by a barrage of missiles and hundreds of drones overnight in a Russian strike that killed at least seven people and again disrupted power and heating systems. Residents were sheltering underground wearing winter jackets, some in tents.

ZELENSKIY: WILL DISCUSS SENSITIVE ISSUES WITH TRUMP

U.S. policy towards the war has zigzagged in recent months.

A hastily arranged summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska in August raised worries in Kyiv and European capitals that the Trump administration might accept many Russian demands, though the meeting ultimately resulted in more U.S. pressure on Russia.

The 28-point plan that emerged last week caught many in the U.S. government, Kyiv and Europe alike off-guard and prompted fresh concerns that the Trump administration might be willing to push Ukraine to sign a peace deal heavily tilted toward Moscow.

The plan would require Kyiv to cede territory beyond the almost 20% of Ukraine that Russia has captured since its February 2022 full-scale invasion, as well as accept curbs on its military and bar it from ever joining NATO - conditions Kyiv has long rejected as tantamount to surrender.

The sudden push has raised the pressure on Ukraine and Zelenskiy, who is now at his most vulnerable since the start of the war after a corruption scandal saw two of his ministers dismissed, and as Russia makes battlefield gains.

Zelenskiy could struggle to get Ukrainians to swallow a deal viewed as selling out their interests.

He said on Monday the latest peace plan incorporated "correct" points after talks in Geneva. "The sensitive issues, the most delicate points, I will discuss with President Trump," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

Zelenskiy said the process of producing a final document would be difficult. Russia's unrelenting attacks on Ukraine have left many sceptical about how peace can be achieved soon.

"There was a very loud explosion, our windows were falling apart, we got dressed and ran out," said Nadiia Horodko, a 39-year-old accountant, after a residential building was struck in Kyiv overnight.

"There was horror, everything was already burning here, and a woman was screaming from the eighth floor, 'Save the child, the child is on fire!'"

MACRON WARNS AGAINST EUROPEAN CAPITULATION

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said an amended peace plan must reflect the "spirit and letter" of an understanding reached between Putin and Trump at their Alaska summit.

"If the spirit and letter of Anchorage is erased in terms of the key understandings we have established then, of course, it will be a fundamentally different situation (for Russia)," Lavrov warned.

A group of countries supporting Ukraine, which is known as the coalition of the willing and includes Britain and France, was also set to hold a virtual meeting on Tuesday.

"It's an initiative that goes in the right direction: peace. However, there are aspects of that plan that deserve to be discussed, negotiated, improved," French President Emmanuel Macron told RTL radio regarding the U.S.-proposed plan. "We want peace, but we don't want a peace that would be a capitulation."

In a separate development, Romania scrambled fighter jets to track drones that breached its territory near the border with Ukraine early on Tuesday, and one was still advancing deeper into the NATO-member country, the defence ministry said.