Washington has pushed a peace blueprint that would see Ukraine withdraw its forces from Donbas and turn it into a “free economic” or demilitarised zone, while existing Russian troops would remain in place and front lines in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia would effectively be frozen. President Volodymyr Zelensky is portrayed rejecting this idea as unsafe and unbalanced, asking who would govern such a zone and warning that Russian soldiers could simply enter disguised as civilians, stressing that only Ukrainians through elections or a referendum can decide on ceding territory.