KYIV — The White House is pressuring Ukraine to sign on to its new peace proposal by Thanksgiving or lose U.S. support to the country, according to two officials familiar with the talks, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive diplomatic discussions.
U.S. Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll presented Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday with a version of the 28-point plan President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff recently drafted with Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev.
That plan, which has been leaked in the press and confirmed by several officials, included several red lines for Ukraine, including a massive reduction of its army size and ceding territory to Russia that it has not yet conquered militarily.
Although Trump has drawn down direct aid to Ukraine, the U.S. has brokered deals for Ukraine to receive U.S. weapons through European partners and continues to share intelligence that is crucial to Ukraine’s survival on the battlefield.
The U.S. is now sending “signals” that everything could be off the table if Kyiv does not quickly sign a proposal, the officials said, even as Driscoll took a lighter tone in Thursday’s meeting.
Zelensky requested changes to the document on Thursday and Driscoll’s team agreed some changes could be made, one of the officials said, although Kyiv remains unclear on which points will be adjustable.
The document would initially be signed by Zelensky and Trump before being presented to the Russians.
The U.S. appears to have divided the teams between Witkoff and Driscoll to “play good cop and bad cop — one presses, the other tries to say: let’s work together to change [the plan],” one of the officials said.
Following the Thursday meeting in Kyiv, U.S. officials including Julie Davis, the chargé d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, said the timeline for signing is “aggressive.”
Army spokesman Col. Dave Butler declined to discuss details of the negotiations.
The plan contains elements long pushed for by Moscow, including a full withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the heavily fortified Donetsk region in the east of Ukraine, granting Russia full control of territory it has not been able to conquer in nearly four years of war. Russia would receive “de facto recognition” of its control of Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk, as well as of the areas of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia it has illegally seized, with the conflict in these regions frozen on the current front line.
Ukraine would be forced to enshrine in its constitution that it will not seek to join NATO Western alliance, while agreeing to significantly reduce the size of its armed forces from the 800,000-850,000 military personnel to 600,000.
In return for making such sweeping concessions to an armed invader, Ukraine is to receive “reliable security guarantees,” though the plan does not contain any wording on what that would mean.
Ukraine has long insisted its best security guarantee is its own military, which should not be shrunk to accommodate Russian demands.
In addition, the proposed settlement would bar the presence of any NATO troops on Ukrainian soil, effectively nixing European proposals to send troops to deter Russia from attacking again,
Top European and Ukrainian officials have signaled their concern about the latest peace proposal, warning it should not involve Ukraine’s “capitulation,” protect Ukraine’s sovereignty and should include Europe in its drafting.
Kyiv has long feared any arrangement that would force it to reduce its army and cede its most fortified territory in Donetsk, as it would give Moscow an upper hand territorially and militarily to eventually launch a new invasion.
Throughout negotiations this year, Kyiv has remained adamant that it will not cede land to Russia that it has not already seized militarily. Ukraine and its allies in Europe have instead proposed a ceasefire that pauses the war at its current front lines.
One person familiar with the contents of the plan said it would require months of painstaking negotiations to bring it to a format that could be acceptable to Ukraine. “Even if Zelensky wanted to sign it, he couldn’t because there is no political basis for it,” this person said. “There are many nonstarters there. Clearly this is a pro-Russian deal that was written by Dmitriev and Witkoff.”
“It is very similar to the minerals deal,” the person added, referring to the economic partnership agreement between Ukraine and the U.S. granting Washington preferential access to future Ukrainian minerals deals. “We modified it for three months” before it was signed. “But this deal is between the U.S., Ukraine, Russia and Europe so I think it will be more like 12 months to negotiate. I think this is the beginning of the peace process, not the end.”
In addition, the Kremlin has yet to signal its backing for the plan. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday said that Moscow had not received any new peace proposals, and added that Russia and the U.S. had made “virtually no progress” on issues that are “irritants” in bilateral relations.
“Russia remains committed to the discussions that took place in Anchorage. We are aware of possible modifications and approved wording, but we have not received anything officially,” Peskov told reporters referring to the August summit in Alaska. “There are certain considerations on the American side, but nothing specific is being discussed at the moment. We are completely open and remain open to peace talks.”
“It doesn’t seem like everyone in the Russian government is interested in this,” the person familiar with the proposal said.
Russia has been making incremental advances on the battlefield over the winter, far outmanning and outgunning the Ukrainian side, and experts say any deal signed now would give Russia a huge advantage while it has the upper hand militarily.
But analysts say Moscow does not have the military capacity to make major gains, and could have to launch a politically difficult mobilization next year to continue the conflict, while sanctions are biting ever deeper into Russian budget revenue forcing the government to make painful tax hikes and spending cuts.
“The effective work of the Russian Armed Forces should convince Zelensky and his regime that it is better to negotiate and do so now, better to do so now than later,” Peskov said. “His room for maneuver is shrinking as he loses territory to the Russian armed forces’ offensive. And this is not even about war: it is about forcing Zelensky and his regime to seek a peaceful solution to the issue.”
The proposal also calls for reintegrating Russia into the global economy as a result of the settlement of the conflict with sanctions to be lifted “in stages and on a case-by-case basis.” If Russia were to attack Ukraine again, “in addition to a decisive coordinated military response, all global sanctions will be reinstated” and recognition of the seized territories would be revoked, the plan states.
Zelensky has been weakened in recent weeks by a major corruption scandal that has ensnared several of his close associates, and which — coupled with the exhausting pace of Russian military strikes and slow advances on the ground — could leave the Ukrainian leader with diminishing options as U.S. officials exert greater pressure on him to accept a deal to end the war.
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