Zelensky ready for ‘honest’ work on US-backed plan as Europeans push back

Summary

• Zelensky is ready to collaborate with the US on a plan to end the war and discuss it with Trump, despite European pushback against concessions.
• The US, including Rubio and Witkoff, engages in talks with both sides, aiming for "difficult but necessary concessions" for a durable peace.
• Russia demands Ukraine cede land and disarm, while Moscow advances, bombarding Ukrainian cities, which Ukraine denies.

KYIV - President Volodymyr Zelensky said after talks with a top US Army official on Nov 20 that he was ready to work with Washington on a plan to end the war in Ukraine, while European allies pushed back against punishing concessions to Russia.

According to the US-backed plan, seen by Reuters, Kyiv would be required to give up the entire Donbas region and significantly downsize its military, conditions long seen by Ukraine’s allies as tantamount to capitulation.

The plan says Ukraine would have to limit its army to 600,000 troops and that it would “receive robust security guarantees”, without providing further details.

It makes several concessions to Russia, including that Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk will be recognised as de facto Russian by the United States and that Ukrainian forces will withdraw from part of the Donetsk region that they control.

“This plan was drawn up immediately following discussions with one of the most senior members of President Zelenskiy’s administration, Mr Rustem Umerov, who agreed to the majority of the plan, after making several modifications, and presented it to President Zelensky,” a senior US official said.

Mr Zelensky, whose office said he had received a draft of the plan, said after meeting US Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll in Kyiv that Ukraine and the US would work together on elements of it.

“Our teams – Ukraine and the USA – will work on the points of the plan to end the war,” Mr Zelensky wrote on Telegram. “We are ready for constructive, honest and prompt work.”

Mr Zelensky’s office did not comment directly on the content of the 28-point plan, which has not been published, but said the Ukrainian leader had “outlined the fundamental principles that matter to our people”.

“In the coming days, the President of Ukraine expects to discuss with President Trump the existing diplomatic opportunities and the key points required to achieve peace,” it said.

The plan seen by Reuters also states that a non-aggression agreement would be concluded between Russia, Ukraine and Europe.

It says that Nato would neither expand further nor station troops in Ukraine and that Russia would be reintegrated into the global economy, with the lifting of sanctions “agreed upon in phases and on a case-by-case basis.”

Russia would be invited to rejoin the G-8 and the United States would enter into an agreement with Moscow covering energy, natural resources, infrastructure, artificial intelligence, data centres and rare earth metals extraction in the Arctic.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told a news briefing that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US special envoy Steve Witkoff had been quietly working on the plan for about a month and that Mr Trump supports the plan.

“This plan was crafted to reflect the realities of the situation, after five years of a devastating war, to find the best win-win scenario, where both parties gain more than they must give,” she said in a comment on the evening of Nov 20 after media outlets reported additional details from the plan.

‘Peace cannot be capitulation’ says France

European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels did not comment in detail about the US plan, but indicated they would not accept demands for Kyiv to make punishing concessions.

“Ukrainians want peace – a just peace that respects everyone’s sovereignty, a durable peace that can’t be called into question by future aggression,” said French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot.

“But peace cannot be a capitulation.”

Mr Zelensky’s office said Mr Driscoll had presented him with the plan only on Nov 20, and several sources told Reuters and other media outlets that the plan was the fruit of backchannel conversations between Mr Witkoff and Mr Kirill Dmitriev, the special envoy of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In a message on X on Nov 19, Mr Rubio said the US “will continue to develop a list of potential ideas for ending this war based on input from both sides of this conflict” and that peace will require concessions from both Kyiv and Moscow.

Mr Zelensky, who met Mr Driscoll alone and then met with the full US delegation, agreed to move quickly towards agreement and the signing of a plan, said Colonel Dave Butler, US army chief of public affairs.

The United States, he said, wanted to ensure that this is “a good plan for the Ukrainian people.”

The acceleration in US diplomacy comes at an awkward time for Kyiv, with its troops on the back foot on the battlefield and Mr Zelensky’s government undermined by a corruption scandal.

Parliament fired two Cabinet ministers on Nov 19.

General says Russia controls Kupiansk

Moscow played down any new US initiative.

“Consultations are not currently under way. There are contacts, of course, but there is no process that could be called consultations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

He said Russia had nothing to add beyond the position President Vladimir Putin laid out at a summit with US President Donald Trump in August, adding that any peace deal must address the “root causes of the conflict”, a phrase Moscow has long used to refer to its demands.

With another winter approaching in the nearly four-year-old war, Russian troops are slowly advancing while bombarding Ukrainian energy supplies and cities as the cold winter sets in.

The Kremlin said on Nov 20 that Mr Putin had visited the command post of the Russian forces’ “West” grouping where he met the chief of Russia’s general staff, General Valery Gerasimov, and other top military brass.

Gen Gerasimov told Mr Putin that Russian forces had taken control of the Ukrainian city of Kupiansk, a city Moscow sees as an important target in its westward push through central and eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine’s military denied Russian claims it controls Kupiansk in north-eastern Ukraine or 70 per cent of the ruined railway hub of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine.

Reuters could not independently verify either statement, although video released by Russia’s defence ministry on Nov 20 showed its troops moving freely through the southern part of Pokrovsk, patrolling deserted streets lined with charred apartment blocks. REUTERS