Marta Kyrylko; Nat Williams. Pics: Arina Zverkhovska

With Donald Trump announcing a 28-point peace plan for Ukraine, which is widely seen to favour Russia, SouthLondonLines went out onto the streets of East London to find out what young people thought.

Nat Williams, 25, a politics student at Queen Mary, university of London said the plan would weaken Ukraine’s sovereignty and favour Russia.

“The territorial concessions that the plan proposes are a flagrant violation of Ukraine’s right to sovereignty over its territory,” he said.

He said Russia had repeatedly shown since 2014 that it could not be trusted to uphold peace agreements.

Marta Kyrylko, 18, an international relations student at Kyiv National University from Ukraine, said there were some positive elements in the plan, including protection for minorities and language rights, but overall it benefited the United States and Russia more than Ukraine.

She said she was especially opposed to the idea of Ukraine being made to write into its constitution that it would not join Nato.

pic: Glib Albovsky sourced from Unsplash

Trump’s proposal includes major concessions from Ukraine, including giving up territory, limiting the size of its military and preventing the country from joining Nato. Many Ukrainians and their supporters fear it would reward Russian aggression rather than guarantee lasting peace.

Williams said that if Russia is  “given more Ukrainian land, they may use it as a springboard for future aggression”.

Kyrylko said she too was sceptical that any peace agreement would stop Russia from attacking Ukraine again in the future.

She said previous agreements had failed to prevent further aggression, and that trust in international law had been damaged.

Williams criticised the proposal to block Ukraine’s accession to Nato and to prevent foreign peacekeepers from being stationed on Ukrainian territory.

“If the peace plan goes ahead, it demonstrates Nato and Europe as weak,” he said. “It gives far too much concession to Russia.”

Kyrylko  agreed that it was “complete nonsense” to enshrine in Ukraine’s constitution that it will not join Nato. She said, “What lawful reason could there be for a sovereign country not to be able to decide which organisations to join? This is without even mentioning the European Union.”