Zelensky Says Ukraine Ready to ‘Honestly’ Engage With U.S. Peace Plan
The proposal, which the White House confirmed on Thursday without providing details, echoes many long-held Russian demands.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday that Ukraine would engage “constructively, honestly and operationally” on a peace plan that the Trump administration proposed after consulting with Russia — but not with Ukraine.
The 28-point settlement plan echoes long-held Russian demands, including that Ukraine surrender territory, limit the size of its army and forgo any role for a Western peacekeeping force after a cease-fire, according to officials familiar with the proposal.
Mr. Zelensky’s comments came after a meeting with the U.S. Army secretary, Dan Driscoll, whom the Trump administration had sent to Ukraine to help restart peace talks. Mr. Zelensky said American and Ukrainian teams would begin work on what he described as the “points of the plan to end the war,” without elaborating on what those were.
While Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, confirmed the plan’s existence earlier on Thursday, the Trump administration has not laid out the full proposal, which Ms. Leavitt said was still in “flux.”
A glimpse of what the plan might entail came in a post on social media by an opposition member of Ukraine’s Parliament, Oleksiy Goncharenko, who listed 28 points ranging over sweeping issues, including European security, a redrawn map of Ukraine, and preventing Ukraine from joining NATO. He did not indicate how he had obtained the information.
Some points touched on issues beyond U.S. or Ukrainian control, such as divvying up Russian assets frozen in European financial institutions. The plan, according to Mr. Goncharenko’s accounting, suggests that a portion of the funds go to rebuilding Ukraine and another portion to unspecified American and Russian joint ventures.
To enforce the agreement, the plan described by Mr. Goncharenko proposes forming a committee chaired by President Trump, echoing a provision in a settlement for the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza that the Trump administration brokered earlier this year.
Earlier on Thursday, Ukrainian and European officials and commentators had responded with dismay to the idea of a settlement formulated without European or Ukrainian input.
“For any plan to work, it needs Ukrainians and Europeans on board,” Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, said before a meeting of the bloc’s foreign affairs council.But Ms. Leavitt, the White House press secretary, confirmed on Thursday that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff, an envoy for peace missions, had been “quietly” working on a plan for the last month. She denied reports that the U.S. plan demanded concessions from Ukraine but not Russia, saying the administration had “talked equally with both sides.”
Ms. Leavitt said the president, who backed the plan, had “grown increasingly frustrated with both sides of this war, Russia and Ukraine alike.”
The U.S. military’s negotiating team in Kyiv, led by Mr. Driscoll, the Army secretary, was sent under the belief that the Kremlin might be more receptive to military-brokered negotiations.
That diplomatic track is the third one opened by the Trump administration. The other two have been led by Mr. Witkoff and by Keith Kellogg, Mr. Trump’s envoy to Russia and Ukraine.Ms. Kallas, the E.U. diplomat, said the Europeans had not heard about any Russian concessions in the 28-point plan.
Senior European leaders recoiled at the proposal after aspects of it were reported.
The Dutch foreign minister, David van Weel, said any settlement was “about Ukrainian territory. It’s about Ukrainian sovereignty. So without a buy-in of Ukraine, you won’t get the support of the Europeans.”An adviser to Mr. Zelensky’s government on foreign policy, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy, said confusion had initially arisen over whether the plan was fully backed by the Trump administration.
On a recent visit to Washington, the adviser said, he was assured that the administration would seek a settlement in Ukraine before opening significant talks on broader issues, including a thaw in relations with Russia.
Another senior Ukrainian official, who asked not to be named to discuss internal matters, said on Wednesday that the Trump administration had informed Kyiv of the talks on the 28-point plan but had not sought its input. The official said that the Ukrainian government objected to the proposal’s terms. In his comments, Mr. Zelensky voiced support for diplomacy but no specific endorsement of points in the plan.
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