Ukraine received a peace plan from the United States this Wednesday that includes the cession of territories controlled by Russia, the reduction of the Ukrainian army and limitations on the weapons that can be used, a Ukrainian official said this Wednesday.
The proposal includes “the recognition of [anexação da] Crimea and other regions taken by Russia” and “the reduction of the army to 400,000 people”, the source, who asked not to be identified, told news agency France-Presse (AFP). “We are receiving signals that we have to accept this plan”, he indicated.
The information comes hours after the agency Reutersdo “Financial Times” and the North American website Axios report a proposal agreed between the US and Russia under these terms. Axios – which had already reported that there were negotiations between Moscow and Washington – talks about a plan with 28 points, which would also include a limitation of military assistance provided to Kiev by the United States and a restriction on the categories of weapons that could be used, particularly long-range weapons.
Ukraine would withdraw from the areas it still controls in the provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk (also known as Donbas and where it still controls around 14.5% of the territory, according to the Institute for the Study of War), which would be demilitarized, without Russia also being able to place troops there. The Donbas and Crimea would be internationally recognized as Russian territory, but Ukraine would not do so at this time. In Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, the other two provinces with fighting on the ground, the front lines would be frozen, with Russia returning some territory.
In return, the US would provide security guarantees to Ukraine and Europe against future Russian aggression, but details of how these guarantees would be put into practice are not known. For the White House, it is most likely that the disputed territories in the Donbas will be taken over by Moscow sooner or later, so it is “in Ukraine’s interest to reach an agreement now.”
An idea thought of together?
The plan will have been designed mainly between Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Kirill Dmitriev, Kremlin advisor and director of the Russian Sovereign Wealth Fund, very close to Putin and who has been present at various moments of peace negotiations. Ukraine will not have been heard to implement this proposal, says a government source interviewed by Reuters. In turn, to AFP, a Kiev source says he does not know whether this plan is “really from Trump” and has his approval or whether it comes from his team, which refers to Witkoff.
Axios reports that the draft agreement – also mediated by Qatar and Turkey, as happened between Israel and Hamas in relation to Gaza – will have contributions from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s national security advisor, Rustem Umerov, who was with Witkoff in Miami over the weekend (that is, after he met with the Russian Dmitriev). However, Ukrainian sources assure the same website that the proposals were only presented orally and that disagreements with their content are great. In fact, the plan appears to go beyond several red lines already taken by Zelensky, with the British “Guardian” even describing it as a “capitulation”.
Two more details of the various points on the table were made public: the Russian language must be recognized as official throughout Ukraine and the Russian Orthodox Church must once again be allowed in the country – it is currently banned by law, as it is seen as an ideological arm of the Kremlin.
More fragile Zelensky
The news of this plan comes at a delicate moment for Zelensky, which saw the Ministers of Justice and Energy fall in recent days, involved in a corruption scandal. Furthermore, Russian advances in eastern Ukraine are slow but steady, while other cities in the country continue to be bombed – this Wednesday, Russian attacks with drones and missiles killed at least 25 people in the city of Ternopil, just over 200 kilometers from the border with Poland.
In a first Ukrainian reaction, ao “Independent Cyiv”a presidential source reported some pessimism and sees an apparent realignment of the US with Moscow’s more maximalist demands, taking advantage of the weaker position of Zelensky, who Moscow considers to be in office illegitimately. This is because presidential elections were not held in 2024, as planned before the outbreak of war – voting is prohibited by the country’s Constitution while it is under the effect of martial law.
The American proposal arrives on the same day that the Ukrainian President traveled to Turkey to meet with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in a visit that aimed to relaunch peace talks with Moscow, currently paralyzed and which had their final moment in July, in Istanbul. This Thursday, Zelensky receives US army officers in Kiev.
On the American side, the White House and the State Department declined to comment further to Reuters.
Advances and setbacks between Washington and Kiev
On October 17, Zelensky met at the White House for the second time with Trump and was questioned by journalists about the possibility of ceding territories to end the war and argued on that occasion that to stop the conflict and “go to peace negotiations urgently, through the diplomatic path” it is necessary to “not give Putin any more”.
The “Financial Times” newspaper reported, at the same time, that the meeting between Trump and Zelensky was marked by an argument with shouting, insults and an alleged threat made by the American leader that Putin “would destroy” Ukraine if the Ukrainian leader did not accept Russian terms for ending the conflict.
A Ukrainian official then said that Trump pressured Zelensky to accept the cession of the eastern region of Donbass to Russia during that meeting at the White House.
In September, Trump even stated that “Ukraine, with the support of the European Union”, was “in a position to fight and reconquer all of its territory back to its original form”. On October 22nd it was The US ruled out a possible meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest, Hungary.