Ukraine is to present a revised peace plan to President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday after weeks of negotiations which have failed to produce an agreement.
The latest iteration of the deal comes after President Volodymyr Zelensky remained firm in his refusal to cede crucial strategic territory to Russia.
The Ukrainian leader insisted that he had “no legal right to do so” under Ukrainian or international law and no “moral right either”.
Trump has expressed growing impatience with Ukraine after presenting a 28-point peace plan that appeared to cede to many of Moscow’s demands. He accused Zelensky of not reading the proposal.
Donald Trump Jr recently suggested that the “unpredictable” president could even consider walking away from the talks altogether.
The Coalition of the Willing, which includes the UK, France and Germany, met to discuss Ukraine’s prospects with Zelensky.
Trump’s 28-point peace plan
While amendments are said to have been made to the proposal since it was first leaked last month, the original US plan made heavy demands of Ukraine, including the surrender of large swathes of land to Russia such as the eastern Donbas region.
Russia currently occupies 20 per cent of Ukraine since its invasion in February 2022. Under the agreement, Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk would be recognised as part of Russia while Kherson and Zaporizhzhia would be frozen along the line of contact.
The proposal also proposed the forfeit of any efforts by Ukraine to join Nato and the full removal of all Nato troops on Ukrainian soil.
The country would be allowed to join the European Union under the agreement, but would have to hold elections within 100 days of the agreement and reduce its military troops from 880,000 to 600,000.
Sanctions on Russia would be lifted, with some frozen Russian assets going towards rebuilding Ukraine.
Electricity produced at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant would be split equally between Russia and Ukraine. It also included several business proposals such as US-led rebuilding of Ukraine using frozen Russian assets with 50 per cent of profits going to the US.
Russia and Ukraine would adopt anti-discrimination laws and “all Nazi ideology and activities must be rejected and prohibited”. Putin has frequently repeated the baseless claim that Ukraine’s government is neo-Nazi, accusations which have no basis in reality.
Shortly after the plan was released, Russian, Ukrainian and US delegations met in Abu Dhabi to discuss revisions to the original plan. It was widely reported that Ukraine had accepted the proposal, which was later clarified to mean the “framework” of the European counteroffer.
Trump said Russia had agreed to some concessions in the aftermath of the talks.
However, a leaked phone call between US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Putin aide Yuri Ushakov led to speculation that negotiations were leaning heavily in favour of Russia. The former real estate mogul appeared to offer advice to Ushakov on how to flatter Trump to secure a favourable outcome.
Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner met with Russian delegates including Ushakov for a five-hour discussion in Moscow on 2 December.
But Ushakov said that the parties were “neither further nor closer to resolving the crisis in Ukraine”, which was interpreted as a rejection of the offer. The Kremlin denied it had rejected the proposal outright.
The details of the negotiations have not been publicised, but key sticking points reportedly include territorial boundaries in the event of a ceasefire.
Ukraine wants the current frontlines as a starting point while Russia wants control of a far larger area than it currently occupies, as well as restrictions on the size of Kyiv’s military.
Ukraine’s 20-point peace plan
Zelensky will present a revised counter-proposal using the US plan as its basis on Tuesday.
He said some “obvious anti-Ukrainian points were removed” and that there is still no agreement on giving up territory.
“Russia is insisting that we give up territories, but we don’t want to cede anything,” he said on Monday.
“We have no legal right to do so, under Ukrainian law, our constitution and international law. And we don’t have any moral right either.”
Europe’s counter-proposal
European countries also took the US plan as its basis, with several notable amendments resulting in a 19-point counteroffer. The proposal was firm that efforts must be made to “fully” reconstruct and rebuild Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire.
It proposed capping troops at 800,000 rather than 600,000 and said elections should take place “as soon as possible”. It left open an option for Ukraine to join Nato but said this would depend on a consensus among its members.
It removed a clause that agreed that 50 per cent of profits from the US-led rebuilding of Ukraine using frozen Russian assets would go to the US.
