Ukrainian President Zelenskiy welcomes US Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll in Kyiv on November 20.

Zelenskyy Ready For 'Constructive, Honest, And Prompt' Work With Trump On Peace Plan

20 Nov 2025, 00:57 by RFE/RL · Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty · Join

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he has received the controversial new US-drafted peace plan that calls for Kyiv to make major concessions and intends to discuss it further with President Donald Trump.

In the first public Ukrainian confirmation of the plan, Zelenskyy's office also said on November 20 that he had "agreed to work on the points of the plan in such a way that it would provide a dignified end to the war."

"We are ready and are now ready to work constructively with the American side and our partners in Europe and the world so that the result is peace," said the statement. "Zelenskyy expects to discuss with...Trump in the coming days the availables diplomatic opportunities and the main points that are needed for peace."

The statement was issued hours after the Ukrainian leader met with a group of top Pentagon officers and US Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll in Kyiv.

The US Embassy in Kyiv called the meeting "remarkably constructive," adding the momentum for the long-awaited peace was finally building.

The terms of the proposed deal appear to track with the hard-line demands Russia has made going back to the start of its all-out invasion in 2022.

The exact terms of the US-drafted proposal were unclear; the presidential office statement did not detail them.

Reports by the Financial Times, Reuters, and Axios, however, said the plan calls for Kyiv to give up some of its territory and weaponry, cut the size of its armed forces, and accept a rollback of US military assistance, which has been essential to its fight against Russian forces.

In addition, no foreign troops would be allowed on Ukrainian soil and Kyiv would no longer receive long-range weaponry.

Zelenskyy has refused previous demands from Moscow that Ukraine cede territory or downgrade its armed forces, saying it would only weaken Ukraine and leave it vulnerable to another invasion in the future.

Analysts said it is unlikely the 28-point proposal will find support in Kyiv.

However, describing the meeting later in the day, Axios, citing unnamed US and Ukrainian officials, reported that the Ukrainian president appeared more conciliatory and agreed to fast-track development of the plan.

In a post-meeting Telegram post, Zelenskyy said Ukraine was ready for "constructive, honest, and prompt" work.

At the press briefing the same day, the White House said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US special envoy Steve Witkoff met with Ukrainian officials last week to discuss a peace plan.

Earlier, Rubio described the proposed plans as a "list of potential ideas for ending the war," suggesting there might be some room for negotiations.

Commenting on the potential peace plan between Ukraine and Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not confirm that any formal negotiations were taking place at the moment.

"As such, consultations are not currently under way. There are contacts, of course, but there is no process that could be called consultations," he said.

In a video released by the Kremlin showing Russian President Vladimir Putin visiting the command post of the West grouping of Russian forces, the Russian leader called for the objectives of Moscow's invasion to be achieved.

Boris Bondarev, a former Russian diplomat who resigned in protest at the Ukraine invasion, questioned whether the Kremlin is actually willing to negotiate, given the terms of the reported deal.

"Moscow has been ready to negotiate since the first day of the war. They say so constantly, every day. There is nothing new about that. But what kind of negotiations are they ready to engage in?" Bondarev asked. "Negotiations like these: discussing Ukraine's surrender."

"What is there to talk about when you are offered the same thing that Putin has been saying since the beginning of the war: the demilitarization of Ukraine, denazification, and so on and so forth?" he added in an interview with Current Time.

The proposals potentially put Zelenskyy in a difficult position.

On the battlefield, Ukrainian forces are struggling to hold back a bigger, better-equipped Russian Army, even as Moscow's forces suffer extraordinary casualties.

Russia is closing in on the key city of Pokrovsk as part of Putin's stated goal to control all of Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.

Russia is also battering Ukraine's cities and its energy infrastructure for yet another winter, seeking to demoralize already exhausted Ukrainians.

Dan Fried, a former US diplomat and architect of US sanctions after Russia seized Crimea in 2014, said the reported deal seemed like "a terrible plan."

"Given past patterns, it could be a ploy without legs," he said in post to X. "We'll know more soon. The administration's Ukraine policy moves are seldom as bad as one fears but not as good as one hopes."

Zelenskyy meetings come as emergency workers search for survivors from a Russian cruise missile strike that hit two apartment buildings in the western city of Ternopil, killing at least 27 people and wounded dozens.

Another attack killed at least five people in Zaporizhzhya, a major southern Ukrainian city and the regional center of one of the country’s four regions that Russia formally annexed in 2022.

At home, Zelenskyy has been politically weakened by a major corruption scandal that has touched on some of his Cabinet ministers and longtime business partners.

Ukrainian lawmakers have called for Zelenskyy to sack his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak.

The corruption investigation concerns allegations that funds earmarked for building defenses to protect Ukraine's vulnerable energy infrastructure from Russian air attacks were siphoned off in the form of kickbacks to political insiders.