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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he is working on a proposal from the United States to end the Russia-Ukraine war, as Kyiv faces growing pressure from Washington and sustained attacks by Russian forces on the battlefield nearly four years into the conflict.

Zelenskyy said on Friday that he discussed US President Donald Trump’s plan in a call with French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

“We are working on the document prepared by the American side. This must be a plan that ensures a real and dignified peace”, the Ukrainian leader wrote on X.

“We are coordinating closely to make sure that the principled stances are taken into account. We coordinated the next steps and agreed that our teams will work together at the corresponding levels”.

Zelenskyy’s comments come as media reports indicate that Trump’s 28-point proposal to end the war endorses several of Russia’s top demands, and its war narrative, including that Ukraine cede additional territory, curb the size of its military and be barred from joining NATO.

At the same time, the West would lift sanctions on Russia, and Moscow would be invited back into the Group of Eight (G8), which it was expelled from for seizing and annexing Crimea in 2014, the AFP news agency said.

I held a joint call with President of France @EmmanuelMacron, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom @Keir_Starmer, and @bundeskanzler Friedrich Merz. I am grateful for their principled support for Ukraine and for all our people.

We discussed the plan for peace for Ukraine and all… pic. twitter.com/Lz6Tq38QUR

Citing two unnamed people familiar with the matter, the Reuters news agency reported on Friday that the Trump administration has threatened to cut intelligence sharing and weapons supplies for Kyiv to pressure it into accepting the plan.

The sources told the agency that Ukraine “was under greater pressure from Washington than during any previous peace discussions” as the US wants the country to sign “a framework of the deal” by next Thursday.

For their part, Ukraine’s European allies, which were not consulted on the US proposal, have stressed the need to safeguard “vital European and Ukrainian interests”, Germany said after the talks with Zelenskyy.

Merz, Macron and Starmer welcomed the “US efforts” to end the war, which began in February 2022 when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbour.

But they assured the Ukrainian leader of their “unwavering and full support for Ukraine on the path to a lasting and just peace”.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, also said the EU and Ukraine want peace but will not give in to Russian aggression. “This is a very dangerous moment for all”, Kallas told reporters.

“We all want this war to end, but it matters how it ends,” he said. In the end, Ukraine must decide the terms of any agreement because Russia has no legal right to any concessions from the nation it invaded.

Fighting rages incessantly

Ukrainian forces are also facing significant challenges on the battlefield and deadly bombings by Moscow as the Trump administration pressures Ukraine to accept the deal.

According to Ukrainian officials, more bodies have been extracted from the rubble following a Russian missile attack earlier this week that killed at least 31 people.

The strike, which struck a residential apartment block, left 94 people injured, including 18 children.

On the eastern bank of the Oskil River, in the eastern Kharkiv region of Ukraine, about 5, 000 Ukrainian soldiers were reportedly trapped. The Ukrainian military did not respond right away.

The report comes as Ukrainian forces have been attempting to stop a Russian assault on Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad, which are both in exile.

Five people were killed and three others were hurt by a Russian attack on the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia on Thursday, according to emergency services. The Zaporizhia region, which borders the two banks of the Dnipro River and is home to the city in southeast Ukraine, is gaining ground for Russia.

Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the Kremlin, claimed on Friday that Zelenskyy should be persuaded to “get it now rather than later” by the country’s advances on the battlefield.

When the Virgin Mary stepped into a packed square from the nearby church Saint-Augustin and Saint Fidele, Halq al-Wadi, also known as La Goulette, in Tunisia, about fell in the night.

Carried on the shoulders of a dozen churchgoers, the statue of the Virgin was greeted with cheers, ululations and a passionately waved Tunisian flag.

Hundreds of people – Tunisians, Europeans, and sub-Saharan Africans – had gathered for the annual procession of Our Lady of Trapani.

Sub-Saharan Africa was a major source of the participants in the procession and the Catholic Mass that followed.

Isaac Lusafu, a native of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, told Al Jazeera, “The Holy Virgin is who brought us all here today.” “Today the Virgin Mary has united us all”.

As people prayed and sang hymns in a large, tightly packed square just outside the church gates, the statue moved in a circle. A mural of the famous Italian actress Claudia Cardinale, who was born in La Goulette, was all under the watchful eye of the area’s eminently fictional home, where thousands of Europeans lived.

A melting pot

Sicilian immigrants brought the Catholic feast of Our Lady of Trapani to La Goulette in the late 1800s in order to provide for the city’s poor southern European fishermen looking for a better life.

Immigration to Tunisia from Sicily peaked in the early 20th century. The statue of the Virgin was left, and almost everyone who had been fishing, along with their families and descendants, has since returned to Europe. Every year on August 15, the statue is carried out of the church in procession.

Tunisian journalist and radio host Hatem Bourial described it as “a unique event.”

He went on to describe how, in the procession’s heyday in the early 20th century, native Tunisians, Muslims and Jews alike, would join Tunisian-Sicilian Catholics in carrying the statue of the Virgin Mary from the church down to the sea.

Participants would ask Mary to bless the fishermen’s boats there. According to Bourial, many residents yelled “Long live the Virgin of Trapani,” while others threw their traditional red cap, the chechia, into the air.

As well as its religious significance – for Catholics, August 15 marks the day that Mary was taken up into heaven – the feast also coincides with the Italian mid-August holiday of Ferragosto, which traditionally signals the high point of the summer.

Silvia Finzi, a Tunisian born in the 1950s, described how many La Goulette residents would declare the worst of the punishingly hot Tunisian summer was over after the statue was brought down to the sea.

According to Finzi, an Italian professor at the University of Tunis, “the sea had changed once the Virgin had been taken down.”

“People would say ‘ the sea has changed, the summer’s over’, and you wouldn’t need to go swimming to cool down any more”.

Exodus from Europe

The first European immigrants began to arrive in La Goulette in the early 19th century. After Tunisia became a French protectorate in 1881, their numbers quickly increased. More than 100, 000 Italian immigrants were reportedly present in Tunisia at their highest point in the early 1900s, which is estimated to have included primarily Sicilians.

In the decade after 1956, when Tunisia gained its independence from France, the vast majority of its European residents left the country, as the new government pivoted towards nationalism.

The Vatican and Tunisia reached an agreement in 1964 that gave the government control of the majority of the country’s now largely deserted churches so they could be used as public buildings. Additionally, the agreement put an end to all public Christian holidays, including the La Goulette procession.

For more than half a century, August 15 was marked only with a Mass inside the church building, and the statue of Our Lady of Trapani remained immobile in its niche. The date remained significant for La Goulette’s severely depleted Catholic population, but it largely ceased to be significant for the community as a whole.

Nostalgia

In 2017, the Catholic Church received permission to restart the procession, initially just inside the church compound. The procession left the church property this year, but it only made it to the square outside when Al Jazeera arrived.

Young Tunisian Muslims with little connection to La Goulette’s historical Sicilian population were many of the attendees.

A major reason for this is undoubtedly the high status accorded to the Virgin Mary in Islam – an entire chapter of the Quran is dedicated to her.

Other participants’ hints of nostalgia for La Goulette’s multiracial and ethnic past.

Rania, 26, told Al Jazeera, “I love the procession. “Lots of people have forgotten about it now, but European immigration is such an important part of Tunisia’s history”.

Un ete a La Goulette (A Summer in La Goulette), a 1996 movie, is a film Rania, a student, has become a source of love for her.

The movie is an ode to La Goulette’s past, featuring dialogue in three different languages, and haunting images of sunlit courtyards and shimmering beaches.

Directed by the renowned Tunisian filmmaker Ferid Boughedir, it follows the lives of three teenage girls – Gigi, a Sicilian, Meriem, a Muslim, and Tina, a Jew – over the course of a summer in the 1960s.

The film ends, however, with the start of the 1967 War between Israel and a number of Arab states and the exodus of nearly all of Tunisia’s undocumented Jews and Europeans.

New migrations

Sub-Saharan Africa’s population has increased, and Tunisia has seen a rise in new migrant communities.

The majority of these newcomers, who are in the thousands, are from Francophone West Africa. Many come to Tunisia in search of work, others hope to find passage across the Mediterranean to Europe.

Many of Tunisia’s sub-Saharan migrants are Christians, who are subject to widespread discrimination, making up the majority of Tunisia’s church-going population.

A mural in the La Goulette church, which was inspired by Our Lady of Trapani’s feast, reflects this fact. Painted in 2017, it depicts the Virgin Mary sheltering a group of people – Tunisians, Sicilians and sub-Saharan Africans – under her mantle.

Passports are everywhere in the air around the Virgin in the mural. These represent the documents that immigrants threw into the sea in order to avoid deportation, according to the church’s priest, Father Narcisse, who is from Chad.

The mural highlights the fact that the Madonna of Trapani, once considered the protector of Sicilian fishermen, is today called upon by immigrants of far more varied backgrounds.

The deep connections between the two Mediterranean shores were highlighted by this celebration, according to Tunisian Archbishop Nicolas Lhernould, in its original form. Tunisians, Africans, Europeans, locals, migrants, and tourists are among the more diverse groups that are present today.

“Mary herself was a migrant”, Archbishop Lhernould said, referring to the New Testament story which narrates Mary’s flight, together with the child Jesus and her husband Joseph, from Palestine to Egypt.

He argued that “we are all migrants, just passing through, citizens of a kingdom that is not of this world” from a Christian point of view.

La Goulette’s spirit

Little Sicily, an area known for its clusters of apartment buildings in the Italian style, was once located in La Goulette. The vast majority of these structures – modest buildings built by the newly-arrived fishermen – have been torn down and replaced, and little more than the church remains to testify to the area’s once significant Sicilian presence.

Only 800 Italians from Tunisia’s original immigrant community were left as of 2019 totaling 800.

Rita Strazzera, a Tunisian born to Sicilian parents, said, “There are so few of us left.” The Tunisian-Sicilian community meets very rarely, she explained, with some members coming together for the celebration on the 15th August, and holding occasional meetings in a small bookshop opposite the church.

Little Sicily’s spirit is still present, though not completely gone. Old La Goulette echoes in both film and memory, and Strazzera told Al Jazeera in other, more unexpected ways.

“Every year, on All Saints ‘ Day, I go to the graveyard”, said Strazzera, referring to the annual celebration when Catholics remember their deceased loved ones.

“And there are Tunisians, Muslims, people who may have had Sicilian parents or Sicilian grandparents and who have visited their graves because they are aware of what Catholics do,” said one of the mourners.

According to Strazzera, “there have been many mixed marriages, and more of them are visiting the graves every year.” When I see them, it’s like a reminder that Little Sicily is still with us”.

United States President Donald Trump has accused several Democratic members of Congress of “seditious behaviour” over their call for the military not to obey “illegal” commands.

On Tuesday, six Democrats – all veterans of the US military or its intelligence services – published a video on social media advising military and intelligence officials to “refuse illegal orders” that they might receive.

In a furious string of posts on his Truth Social platform, Trump responded to the video, saying the US lawmakers should be arrested and even suggested that their behaviour could be “punishable by death”.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, however, clarified to reporters in Washington, DC, on Thursday that Trump does not intend for members of Congress to be executed.

What is behind the Democrats’ warning video and Trump’s latest threats?

Here’s what we know:

What did Democrats say?

On November 18, Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, Pennsylvania Representative Chris Deluzio, New Hampshire Representative Maggie Goodlander, Pennsylvania Representative Chrissy Houlahan and Colorado Representative Jason Crow posted a video on social media, directly addressing the country’s current military and intelligence officers.

In the video, the six Congress members said: “We know you are under enormous stress and pressure right now. Americans trust their military, but that trust is at risk.”

“This administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens. Like us, you all swore an oath to protect and defend this Constitution. Right now, the threats coming to our Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad but from right here at home. Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders. You must refuse illegal orders,” they added.

“No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution.”

The Democratic congresspeople, however, did not specify which orders or policies from Trump’s administration might violate the US Constitution.

We want to speak directly to members of the Military and the Intelligence Community.

The American people need you to stand up for our laws and our Constitution.

Don’t give up the ship. pic.twitter.com/N8lW0EpQ7r

How has Trump responded?

In a post on Truth Social on Thursday, Trump lambasted the lawmakers and said their behaviour was “seditious”, seeking to incite people to rebel against his authority.

“SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL,” he wrote.

“Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL. Their words cannot be allowed to stand – We won’t have a Country anymore!!! An example MUST BE SET,” he added.

In another post the same day, Trump shared a report by the Washington Examiner on the Democrats’ video and suggested arresting them.

“This is really bad, and Dangerous to our Country. Their words cannot be allowed to stand. SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP???”

An hour later, Trump appeared to suggest sentencing the Democrat lawmakers to death because of their behaviour and wrote on Truth Social: SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”

Asked by White House reporters if the president would actually sentence the congresspeople to death, press secretary Leavitt said, “No.”

However, she insisted that none of the President’s orders or policies so far had been against the law.

“Every single order that is given to this United States military by this commander-in-chief and through this chain of command – through the secretary of war – is lawful,” she told a news briefing on Thursday.

“We do things by the books. And to suggest and encourage that active-duty service members defy the chain of command is a very dangerous thing for sitting members of Congress to do,” she said, adding that the Democrats “should be held accountable” for “their dangerous rhetoric”.

What do Democrats mean by ‘illegal orders’?

The six Democrats did not specify which orders they were referring to as being “illegal” or against the Constitution.

Before Trump responded to the video, Republican Representative of Arizona Eli Crane told Fox News that if the Democrats could not “name the unlawful orders”, it would be cowardly.

“If you can’t name the unlawful orders that these guys are bringing up in their video, you know, that just shows me that you don’t have the courage to even call out what you’re talking about,” he said.

In a separate segment of Fox News, also on Thursday, anchor Martha MacCallum grilled Colorado Democratic Representative Crow about what orders they considered illegal.

Referring to the unrest which took place after the killing of Black man George Floyd by a police officer in 2020 during Trump’s first term as president, Crow responded, “The protests at Lafayette Square, where he said, ‘Can’t you just shoot them in the legs or something’, that’s his direct quote.”

MacCallum said it was not an order, but “a comment”.

Crow replied: “That’s coming from the president of the US to your generals … he’s also threatened to send the military into Chicago and other cities and go to war with those cities. That is a very disturbing thing.”

Crow added that Trump had also alluded to sending troops to polling stations during elections and said that would be a violation of US law.

“US criminal law prohibits troops from going to polling stations,” he added.

MacCALLUM: You’re implying that Trump might do something they wouldn’t want to uphold. What are you talking about?

CROW: The protests at Lafayette Square where he said, ‘Can’t you just shoot them in the legs’

MacCALLUM: That’s not an order. That’s a comment

CROW: That’s coming… pic.twitter.com/9nyHUIHE5f

In a separate post on X on Wednesday, Crow pointed out that the recent US bombing campaign of alleged Venezuelan drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean Sea also violates US law.

“The President is trampling on the Constitution,” Crow wrote. “Stop politicizing our troops. Stop illegal military strikes. Stop pitting our servicemembers against the American people.”

Oh no, we triggered Snowflake Stephen!

The President is trampling on the Constitution.

Stop politicizing our troops.

Stop illegal military strikes.

Stop pitting our servicemembers against the American people. https://t.co/6r4AAy8l43

More than 60 people have been killed in US strikes on boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Last month, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said: “These attacks – and their mounting human cost – are unacceptable.”

The Trump administration has argued that the strikes are necessary for anti-drug and counterterrorism operations, but Volker added that operations to counter illicit drug trafficking must adhere to international law.

“Under international human rights law, the intentional use of lethal force is only permissible as a last resort against individuals who pose an imminent threat to life,” he said and called on the US to stop what he said were “extrajudicial killing of people aboard these boats”.

In a joint statement late on Thursday, the Democrats in the video said: “No threat, intimidation, or call for violence will deter us from that sacred obligation.”

“What’s most telling is that the president considers it punishable by death for us to restate the law,” they said and added that Americans should unite and “condemn the President’s calls for our murder and political violence”.

“This is a time for moral clarity. In these moments, fear is contagious, but so is courage. We will continue to lead and will not be intimidated. Don’t Give Up the Ship!”

A joint statement from myself @SenMarkKelly, @RepJasonCrow, @RepDeluzio, @RepGoodlander and @RepHoulahan.

“We are veterans and national security professionals who love this country and swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. That oath lasts a…

Referring to Trump’s threats against them, Pennsylvania Representative Deluzio told US broadcaster NBC News on Thursday: “It’s a dark day in the country for any president to say such a thing.”

“We have to end this scourge. And yet Donald Trump is the person with the most power who can bring the temperature down, and instead, he threatens to have us killed,” he said.

Meanwhile, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told the Senate on Thursday that what the president wrote “is an outright threat, and it’s deadly serious”.

“When Donald Trump uses the language of execution and treason, some of his supporters may very well listen,” Schumer added. “He is lighting a match in a country soaked with political gasoline.”

What does the US military oath of enlistment say about following legal and illegal orders?

Article 92 of the US Uniform Code of Military Justice states that any person who “violates or fails to obey any lawful general order or regulation” or has “knowledge of any other lawful order issued by a member of the armed forces” and fails to obey it, or “is derelict in the performance of his duties”, shall be punished.

The US Code of Military Justice is a federal law enacted in 1951 and applies to all active armed forces members, armed forces students, as well as active National Guard members.

According to the office of US Attorney Peter Kageleiry Jr, who specialises in military law, failure to obey lawful orders can lead to punishments like “dishonourable discharge (from duty) and forfeiture of all pay and allowances.”

However, an order is considered unlawful if it violates the US Constitution.

Has Trump given any illegal orders?

It is debatable. Some judges have said some of Trump’s policies or orders in the recent past do violate US law.

Earlier this month, federal Judge Karin Immergut ruled that Trump had unlawfully ordered National Guard troops to Portland, Oregon.

Immergut, a Trump appointee, rejected the administration’s claim that protesters at an immigration detention facility were waging a rebellion that legally justified sending troops.

On Friday this week, federal Judge Jia Cobb said Trump’s military takeover of Washington, DC, in August – to combat violent crime there, he said – violates the Constitution and ordered the president to end the deployment of troops there.

Cobb ruled that the president cannot deploy soldiers for “whatever reason” he wants, and gave his administration 21 days to appeal the order before it goes into effect.

In October, a federal judge in Chicago temporarily blocked Trump’s deployment of hundreds of National Guard soldiers in Illinois. That ruling was upheld by the Chicago-based US Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit later in the month.

In response, Trump threatened to use the Insurrection Act to send soldiers to US cities, as the states of Illinois and Oregon continue to fight federal military deployments in court.

“We have an Insurrection Act for a reason. If I had to enact it, I’d do that,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday.

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said the maritime strikes on Venezuelan boats by US forces amount to “extrajudicial killings”.

“US officials cannot summarily kill people they accuse of smuggling drugs,” said Sarah Yager, Washington director at HRW. “The problem of narcotics entering the United States is not an armed conflict, and US officials cannot circumvent their human rights obligations by pretending otherwise.”

Salvador Santino Regilme, a political scientist who leads the international relations programme at Leiden University, told Al Jazeera in October that under Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter, the use of force by one state against another is prohibited except when authorised by the UN Security Council or exercised in legitimate self-defence under Article 51.

And the US claim that strikes against “drug traffickers” near Venezuela amount to self-defence “appears legally untenable”, Regilme said.

But Trump has often indicated that he considers himself above the law.

In February, he wrote on X: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”

He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.

In April 2020, during his first term as president, when the US was under lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump told reporters that only he and no public health expert or local leader had the authority to lift lockdown orders.