KYIV, Ukraine — The U.S. and Russia have drawn up a plan aimed at ending the war in Ukraine that calls for major concessions from President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to a person familiar with the matter. As reports emerged of the proposal, blindsided European diplomats insisted they and Ukraine must be consulted.
The plan, first reported by Axios, include granting Russia some of the major demands it has made repeatedly since it launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor nearly four years ago, according to a person familiar with the matter.
U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff has been quietly working on the plan for a month, receiving input from both the Ukrainians and the Russians on terms that are acceptable to each side to end the war, according to a senior U.S. official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
President Trump, the official added, has been briefed on the plan and supports it.
The talk of a secret peace plan piled more pressure on Zelensky, who is also marshaling his country’s defenses against Russia’s bigger army, visiting European leaders to ensure they continue their support for Ukraine, and navigating a major corruption scandal involving the embattled energy sector that has caused public outrage.
European leaders have been alarmed by indications that Trump might be sidelining them and Zelensky in the push to stop the fighting. Trump’s at times conciliatory approach to Russian President Vladimir Putin has fueled those concerns, though Trump adopted a tougher line last month when he announced heavy sanctions on Russia’s vital oil sector that come into force Friday.
“For any plan to work, it needs Ukrainians and Europeans on board,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said at the start of a meeting in Brussels of the 27-nation bloc’s foreign ministers.
Plan would give Russia control of the Donbas
It wasn’t clear whether the foreign ministers had seen the peace plan, drawn up by U.S. and Russian envoys, and which was said to include forcing Ukraine to cede territory, a prospect Zelensky has ruled out.
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller declined to comment on Wednesday on reports about the proposal but underscored Trump wants “to reach a settlement in the Ukraine-Russia war, so that we can have peace in Europe and we can end the killing and the slaughter of so many innocents.”
The Trump administration’s diplomatic efforts this year to stop the fighting have so far come to nothing.
Several high-ranking Army officials, including Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, were in Kyiv on Thursday to give a new push to peace efforts and assess the reality on the ground in Ukraine, U.S. officials said.
The proposal, which could still be changed, calls in part for Ukraine to cede territory to Russia and to abandon certain weaponry, according to the person who had been briefed on the contours of the plan but was not authorized to comment publicly. It would also include the rollback of some critical U.S. military assistance.
Russia, as part of the proposal, would be given effective control of the entire eastern Donbas region, Ukraine’s industrial heartland made up of the Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk regions, even though Ukraine still holds part of it. Putin has listed the capture of the Donbas as the key goal of the invasion.
Witkoff and Kirill Dmitriev, a close advisor to Putin, have been key to drafting the proposal, according to the person familiar with the matter.
A peace deal that requires Kyiv to hand over territory to Russia would not only be deeply unpopular with Ukrainians, it also would be illegal under Ukraine’s constitution. Zelensky has repeatedly ruled out such a possibility.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on social platform X late Wednesday that American officials “are and will continue to develop a list of potential ideas” for a lasting peace agreement which “will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that there “there are no consultations per se currently underway” with the U.S. on ending the war in Ukraine. “There are certainly contacts, but processes that could be called consultations are not underway,” he told reporters.
EU accuses Russia of insincerity
EU diplomats have accused Putin of being insincere in saying he wants peace but refusing to compromise in negotiations while sustaining Russia’s grinding war of attrition in Ukraine.
Kallas, the EU’s chief diplomat, chided Putin’s forces for continuing to target civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, a day after a strike on the western city of Ternopil killed 26 people and injured 93 others. About two dozen people were still missing.
Kallas said that “if Russia really wanted peace, it could have … agreed to [an] unconditional ceasefire already some time ago.”
Trump has stopped sending military aid directly to Ukraine, with European countries taking up the slack by buying weaponry for Ukraine from the United States. That has given Europe leverage in talks on ending the conflict.
“We commend peace efforts, but Europe is the main supporter of Ukraine and it’s, of course, Europe’s security that’s at stake. So we expect to be consulted,” said Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski.
Novikov and Madhani write for the Associated Press. Madhani reported from Washington. AP journalist Sam McNeil, in Brussels, contributed to this report.
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