Joe Biden Offered Vladimir Putin 20 Percent of Ukraine to End War: Report

Newsweak ^ | 2/2/23 | Isabel van Brugen

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The White House and the CIA have responded to a report that CIA Director, William Burns, offered Russian President Vladimir Putin a fifth of Ukraine's territory to end the ongoing war as part of a peace plan drawn up on behalf of President Joe Biden.

A CIA official told Newsweek that claims in the report from Swiss-German newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) that Burns took a secret trip to Moscow in January and that there was a peace proposal put forward by the director on behalf of the White House were "completely false."

Last month, Burns traveled in secret to meet and brief Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, The Washington Post reported.

Burns is said to have submitted the plan in mid-January to put an end to the war, which began on February 24, 2022. The story was reported by NZZ on Thursday, citing high-ranking German foreign politicians.

Both Kyiv and Moscow reportedly rejected the proposal.

Newsweek reached out to the foreign ministries of Ukraine and Russia for comment.

According to the newspaper, the proposal offered "around 20 percent of Ukraine's territory"—approximately the size of Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.

Kyiv reportedly shut down the proposal "because they are not willing to have their territory divided" while Russian officials said they "will win the war in the long run anyway," reported NZZ, which has been described as the Swiss newspaper of record.

Sean Davett, the deputy spokesperson at White House's National Security Council, told Newsweek that the report from NZZ is "not accurate," and that the CIA would say the same.

According to the news outlet the German politicians said Biden wanted to avoid a protracted war in Ukraine, and so, offered the territory as part of the peace plan.

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