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UKRAINE AND EUROPE REWRITE US-RUSSIA ‘PEACE PLAN’  
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Luke Harding in Kyiv, Jon Henley and Pjotr Sauer
November 24, 2025
The Guardian
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_ Some of Russia’s maximalist demands have been removed from
original 28-point proposal drawn up last month by Vladimir Putin’s
special envoy and Trump’s representative Steve Witkoff. European
leaders warn that no deal can be reached quickly. _

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Ukraine has significantly amended the US “peace plan” to end the
conflict, removing some of Russia’s maximalist demands, people
familiar with the negotiations said, as European leaders warned on
Monday that no deal could be reached quickly.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy may meet Donald Trump in the White House later
this week, sources indicated, amid a flurry of calls between Kyiv and
Washington. Ukraine is pressing for Europe to be involved in the
talks.

The original 28-point US-Russian plan was drawn up last month by
Kirill Dmitriev, Vladimir Putin’s special envoy
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and Trump’s representative Steve Witkoff. It calls on Ukraine to
withdraw from cities it controls in the eastern Donbas region, limit
the size of its army, and not join Nato.

During negotiations on Sunday in Switzerland – led by the US
secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and Zelenskyy’s chief of staff,
Andriy Yermak – the plan was substantially revised. It now includes
only 19 points. Kyiv and its European partners say the existing
frontline has to be the starting point for territorial discussions.

On Monday, Zelenskyy said: “As of now, after Geneva, there are fewer
points, no longer 28, and many correct elements have been incorporated
into this framework,” adding that sensitive issues were to be
discussed with Trump.

They say there can be no recognition of land seized by Russia
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should make its own decisions on whether to join the EU and Nato –
something the Kremlin wants to veto or impose conditions on.
Ukraine’s first deputy foreign minister, Sergiy Kyslytsya, told the
Financial Times such issues had been “placed in brackets” for
Trump and Zelenskyy to decide upon later.

 

 
Rubio hailed Sunday’s talks as “very very positive”. Writing on
Truth Social on Monday, Trump, who days earlier had accused
Ukraine’s leadership of having “zero gratitude”, also struck a
positive tone.
“Is it really possible that big progress is being made in Peace
Talks between Russia and Ukraine??? Don’t believe it until you see
it, but something good just may be happening. GOD BLESS AMERICA!” he
wrote.

Ukraine’s delegation briefed Zelenskyy about the talks on Monday
after returning to Kyiv from Geneva. They described the latest version
of the plan as more realistic. Separately, Zelenskyy spoke to the US
vice-president, JD Vance, and urged him to involve European countries
in the process. Vance reportedly agreed.

But in the clearest sign yet the original 28-point plan – widely
seen as favourable to Moscow – still falls short of several key
Kremlin demands, Putin’s top foreign policy aide on Monday said
Moscow would seek to “rework” parts of it.

“We were given some sort of draft … which will require further
reworking,” said Yuri Ushakov, adding that “many provisions” of
the plan appeared acceptable to Russia, but others would “require
the most detailed discussions and review between the parties”.

Underscoring the Kremlin’s hardline stance, Ushakov said Moscow
would reject a European counter-proposal from the weekend, which,
according to a copy seen by Reuters, changes the meaning and
significance of key points concerning Nato membership and territory.

“The European plan, at first glance … is completely unconstructive
and does not work for us,” he said.

The UK and EU were blind-sided last week when the original plan was
leaked to US media. The army secretary, Dan Driscoll
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– Vance’s friend and university classmate – was sent to Kyiv
with a military delegation to brief Zelenskyy on its contents.

Since then, European governments have sought to revise the document,
which appears to have originally been written in Russian. EU leaders
attending an EU-Africa summit in Angola welcomed a degree of progress,
but said far more work remained to be done and insisted Europe must be
fully involved and Russia must be present if talks were to advance
substantively.

The European Council president, António Costa, praised “a new
momentum”, saying after talks on the sidelines of the summit that
while issues remained, “the direction is positive”.

The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, also called
the “refined peace framework” agreed in Switzerland “a solid
basis for moving forward”, but added: “Work remains to be done.”

Von der Leyen said the core principles the EU would always insist on
were that “Ukraine’s territory and sovereignty must be respected
– only Ukraine, as a sovereign country, can make decisions regarding
its armed forces”.

The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said both Europe and Russia
must be fully involved. “The next step must be: Russia must come to
the table,” Merz said, while Europeans must be able to give their
consent to “issues that affect European interests and
sovereignty”.

Talks would be a “long-lasting process” and Merz said he did not
expect a breakthrough this week. The Polish prime minister, Donald
Tusk, said the talks were delicate because “nobody wants to put off
the Americans and President Trump from having the US on our side in
this process”.

Tusk also stressed that any peace settlement needed to “strengthen,
not weaken, our security” and must not “favour the aggressor”.
Sweden’s prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, said Russia “must be
forced to the negotiating table” to see “aggression … never
pays”.

Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, said there was more work to
do but progress was being made. A group of countries supporting
Ukraine – the coalition of the willing – would discuss the issue
in a video call on Tuesday, he said.

The chairs of the parliamentary foreign affairs committees of 20
European countries, including France, Ireland, Poland, Spain and the
UK, issued a rare joint statement saying just and lasting peace would
not be achieved by “yielding to the aggressor” but must be
“grounded in international law and fully respect Ukraine’s
territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty”.

On Monday, the White House pushed back against criticism, including
from within the Republican party, that Trump is favouring Russia.

“The idea that the US is not engaging with both sides equally in
this war to bring it to an end is a complete and total fallacy,” the
press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters.

Zelenskyy is at his most vulnerable since the start of the war, after
a corruption scandal led to two of his ministers being dismissed while
Russia makes battlefield gains.

Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, was hit by what officials
said was a massive drone attack that killed four people on Sunday.
With smoke rising from the rubble, one man was seen crouched and
holding the hand of a dead person.

“There was a family, there were children,” Ihor Klymenko, Red
Cross commander of the emergency response team in Kharkiv, told
Reuters. “I can’t tell you how, but the children are alive, thank
God, the man is alive. The woman died, unfortunately.”

Across the border, Russian air defences downed Ukrainian drones en
route to Moscow, forcing three airports serving the capital to pause
flights. A reported Ukrainian drone strike on Sunday knocked power out
for thousands of residents near Moscow, a rare reversal of Russian
attacks on energy targets that regularly cause power blackouts for
millions of Ukrainians.

_Luke Harding is a Guardian foreign correspondent. His
book __Invasion_
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published by Guardian Faber. Click __here_
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for Luke's public key._

_Jon Henley is the Guardian's Europe correspondent, based in Paris._

_Pjotr Sauer is a Russian affairs reporter for the Guardian._

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* Ukraine
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* Volodymyr Zelensky
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* Russia
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* Vladimir Putin
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* Donald Trump
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* Europe
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