Even as U.S. and Ukrainian negotiators announced progress over the weekend on modifying the draft of the American-led 28-point peace plan to make it more acceptable to Kyiv, those same changes will probably doom it for Russia, say analysts and Russian observers.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that Russia was waiting to see a new modified version of the contentious plan for Ukraine, amid reports that Army Secretary Dan Driscoll was meeting Russian officials in Abu Dhabi, UAE, to attempt to drive the peace process forward.
The negotiations to come up with a peace plan that would somehow be acceptable to all sides and end nearly four years of war came as dozens of Russian missiles slammed into Kyiv overnight, hitting buildings and power infrastructure.
The original plan, which was widely criticized by the Ukrainians and Europeans as being too pro-Russian and a capitulation for Ukraine, was endorsed Friday by Russian President Vladimir Putin as a possible basis for peace. Most analysts believe the latest changes will be unacceptable to Moscow, leaving Russia with the choice of trying to revise the draft deal once more or rejecting it outright.
The latest flurry of chaotic, pre-Thanksgiving U.S. diplomacy aimed at ending the war could in the end fizzle, just as previous efforts have.
Peskov said Tuesday that while Russia had not been given the new text, the only version it could work with was “Trump’s draft,” an apparent reference to the earlier 28-point plan.
“The only substantive document today is the American draft, Trump’s draft. We believe that it could become a very good basis for talks. We continue to adhere to this point of view,” Peskov told Russian reporters.
“When it’s time, we will engage with it in a very substantive manner,” he said.
In his comments to the Russian Security Council on Friday, Putin declared that Russia was “happy” to fight on and defeat Ukraine through military means. “But, as I’ve said many times before, we’re also ready for peace talks and peaceful resolution of problems.”
As U.S. officials scrambled to try to bring the sides closer, Russia launched a punishing missile and drone attack against the Ukrainian capital Kyiv overnight, striking residential apartment buildings in several neighborhoods and killing at least seven people, the latest in a series of attacks on civilian infrastructure that seem designed to increase the pressure on Ukraine’s civilian population to break the nation’s resistance.
Once U.S. and Ukrainian officials come up with a draft of the plan acceptable to both sides, the Americans are expected to present it to the Russians who will inevitably have modifications of their own.
A former senior Kremlin official with knowledge of the talks said that the original 28-point plan was just a “starting point” for Russia, with some elements acceptable to Moscow, and others not.
“Putin also thinks that no one is taking his position seriously. Putin does not really want to continue the war but he’s an opportunist. He really has to receive something meaningful in return for this war,” the former official said, dismissing Ukrainian and European efforts to shape the process.
“It’s a pro-Russian plan but Russia is in a stronger position, so any plan would have to be pro-Russian because this is more realistic,” the former official said.
Russia has consistently criticized any European input into negotiations, insisting that the European nations are warmongers only seeking to perpetuate the war with their support of Ukraine.
Peskov did say that Europe’s input would be required in negotiations later in relations to matters that impacted it, such as negotiating Europe’s security architecture. “It is practically impossible to discuss the security system in Europe, to speak about security guarantees without the Europeans’ participation,” he said. “Their participation will certainly be needed at some point.”
Red lines for Russia in the negotiations include the move reported earlier by The Washington Post to, for now, put aside Moscow’s contentious demand that Ukraine withdraw from territory in the eastern Donbas region that Russia has failed to conquer, and instead for this to be decided in talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. It would also reject the call for Ukraine’s NATO aspirations to be decided based on NATO’s rules that would nix the outright veto on membership from the earlier draft.
In the Sunday talks, Ukrainian negotiators told their U.S. counterparts that Kyiv would willing to start discussions from its current military positions, not on Russian demands that Ukraine surrender the portion of the Donbas region it does not control, as stipulated in the earlier draft of the deal.
The former senior Kremlin official said Russia may be willing to freeze the front lines in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. “But the most complicated piece is Donetsk. I think compromise on Donetsk would be possible but only at the end of the negotiations.”
The Donetsk region is part of Donbas.
The U.S. negotiators are aware of the sensitivity of territorial concessions for the Ukrainians, said Oleksandr Bevz, a Ukrainian government adviser who participated in the Geneva talks, and realize that such questions could stir social unrest or military protests in Ukraine.
Tatiana Stanovaya, senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, described the original 28-point plan as no more than an expanded version of the proposal Russia handed to Witkoff when he visited Putin in the Kremlin in April — a plan that then, as now, was swiftly rejected by Ukraine and Europe.
“From Moscow’s point of view, little has changed since April, apart from the fact that Ukraine’s position has worsened,” she said. When Putin said the plan could be a basis of discussions, it was clearly with the idea of making it still more favorable to Russia.
After all, pointed out Alexander Baunov, also from Carnegie, just the fact that the 28-point plan has been made public means Russia cannot accept worse. “Everyone has already read the 28 points and must understand that proud Russia will no longer bend in public view. So, either more or at least equal, either better or nothing,” he said.
In fact, even that plan was not good enough, said a Russian academic close to senior Russian diplomats, since the Kremlin has long insisted on dismantling Zelensky’s government and its military might.
“They are not making any concessions. They are just going to rebuild their forces and they will be supplied by the European defense sector and then when they’ve collected their strength they will continue the war. At least this is how many experts around the Russian leadership see it,” the academic said, referring to Ukraine.
Over the past year of peace initiatives, both the Russians and the Ukrainians have been at pains to avoid appearing to Trump as any kind of obstacle to peace.
Trump has at times shown signs of impatience with Putin, who repeatedly deflected his calls for a ceasefire or a freeze in fighting at current battle positions, and the White House last month imposed sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies.
But much of the U.S. pressure throughout 2025 has fallen on Ukraine, the victim of Russia’s aggression, from a tense White House meeting in February when Trump told Zelensky that “you don’t have the cards,” to abandoning calls for a ceasefire after his August summit with Putin in Alaska. When the latest peace deal was presented it was accompanied by threats to withdraw all support.
“It’s important for Putin not to lose Trump,” the academic said, speaking on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue. “And I think he would not like Russia to be seen by Trump as the main obstacle to peace. Therefore he is ready to show some kind of flexibility. But on what scale and in what areas we don’t know yet.”
Putin’s final position is likely to hinge on his view of Russia’s “reserves of stability” under the growing weight of sanctions, he said. “If he considers that problems are building up and next year will be more difficult, this could be a stimulus to take a more flexible position,” he said.
Russian analyst Vladimir Pastukhov, an honorary professor at the University College London, said that while 28-point plan failed to meet Russia’s central goals when it launched the war — to topple Ukraine’s leaders, slash its army to a rump and neutralize it — it might still be acceptable.
The important aspect of the plan is how it confers legitimacy on Putin, could lead to Ukraine’s surrender of Donbas and legitimize the idea of Ukraine being dismembered.
“Trump through this plan legitimized the discussions around a lot of things that were taboo — the division of Ukraine, the possibility of changing the status quo by force, and so on. That’s the point of the plan, not any specific details.”
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