Ukraine won some limited concessions in the latest version of a US-led draft plan to end the Russian invasion, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has revealed.
But key questions remain over territory and whether Moscow could accept the new terms.
The 20-point plan, agreed on by US and Ukrainian negotiators, was being reviewed by Russia. The Kremlin has previously not shown a willingness to abandon its hard-line territorial demands for full Ukrainian withdrawal from the east.
Zelenskyy conceded there were some points in the document that he did not like, but Ukraine had succeeded in removing immediate requirements for it to withdraw from the Donetsk region or that land seized by Russia's army would be recognised as Russian.
Nevertheless, the Ukrainian leader still indicated the proposal would pave the way to pull some troops back, including from the 20 per cent of the Donetsk region that it controls, where demilitarised zones would be established.
It also got rid of demands that Ukraine 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, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions, the line of troop deployment as of the date of this agreement is de facto recognised as the line of contact," Zelensky 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 demilitarised 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 demilitarised zone or a free economic zone, meaning a format that could satisfy both sides," he continued.
'Let him croak'
US President Trump is trying to broker a deal to end the four-year war, triggered by Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion.
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. Russia's defence ministry on Wednesday said it had captured another Ukrainian settlement in the southern Zaporizhzhia region.
Russia in 2022 claimed to have annexed four Ukrainian regions — Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk 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 hard-line demands for a sweeping Ukrainian withdrawal and a string of political concessions that Russia and its European backers have previously cast as capitulation.
In a Christmas Eve address to the nation later on Wednesday, Zelenskyy appeared to wish death upon the Russian leader.
"Today we all have one dream. And we make one wish for everyone: Let him croak," he said, a reference widely understood to be about Putin.
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