The world is watching as negotiations on the Russia-Ukraine conflict intensify, with the coming days likely to bring meaningful developments and move towards a decisive stage. This unprecedented development was made possible when news leaked out last week about a Trumpian 28-point ‘peace plan’, sparking international attention to its contents and implications.
While it’s best not to judge peace prospects based on the buoyancy of a president who once promised to end the war in just 24 hours, we must take a look at what encompasses the infamous 28-point plan and why it has become such a priority for the US at this particular moment?
The nature of the plan in itself raises ambiguities. While European sources generally refer to the draft as a joint initiative between Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and his Russian counterpart Kirill Dmitriev, some American accounts include Jared Kushner (son-in-law of the U.S. President) as a contributor, reporting that he participated in meetings with Dmitriev and Witkoff that helped craft the initial draft. Whoever the architects were, one thing remains clear: Ukraine was effectively excluded from the process and presented with the plan post-factum.
Even more so, the leaked transcript of the October call between Witkoff and the Kremlin’s senior foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov Ushakov casted a long shadow over the legitimacy and sincerity of the Trump administration. According to Bloomberg News, Witkoff appears to have coached Ushakov on how to present the peace proposal to the U.S., advising that Russia frame its demands more ‘optimistically’ to appeal to President Trump. And while the transcript was published without official authentication, the fact that it appeared through Bloomberg gives it enough credibility. The scoop has since become a scandal. While the world scrambles for the ‘who’s’ and ‘why’s,’ the Guardian raises an interesting possibility: that the leak likely originated within Western intelligence circles, not to embarrass Moscow, but to prevent Washington from quietly adopting a Russian-leaning peace deal.
At the same time, economic pressures help explain why it may be Russia, rather than the US, that is suddenly more interested in a negotiated end to the war.
Recent S&P Global data show a dramatic decline in Russian petroleum-product exports to Asia, nearly 60 percent on average, with shipments to India dropping by 57 percent and even sharper declines to China and Taiwan. For years, Western sanctions were dismissed as ‘toothless’ and easy to circumvent. That is no longer the case. The latest U.S. sanctions against Russia are starting to bite, tightening enforcement and reducing Russia’s ability to reroute its petroleum exports through intermediaries.
But there is another dimension to this timing. Al Jazeera suggests that the corruption scandal ‘Mindich-Gate’, implicating figures close to Zelenskyy in an alleged $100 million kickback scheme in the energy sector, delivered a ‘devastating blow’ to Ukraine’s credibility and left Kyiv more vulnerable to external pressure. And with only about 25% of Ukrainians saying Zelenskyy should remain president after the war, according to KIIS polling, the U.S. may be seizing a moment when Ukraine’s leadership is politically weakened and therefore more vulnerable to Washington’s push for a negotiated end.
So, what is in the infamous 28-point ‘peace plan’? The important points are these: Ukraine would remain a sovereign state, but would concede extensive territory to Russia, including all of Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk, along with the provinces of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia (but only to the extent that Russia occupies them at present). Also note the description of the territories as ‘de-facto Russian’, as opposed to being merely under ‘de-facto Russian control’. This distinction is not semantic; it implies legal and political recognition of territories Moscow has demanded for years. As such, it appears the initial 28 point-plan effectively takes Russia’s strategic objectives and repackages them as an American blueprint for peace.
But the concessions go beyond territorial gains. Ukraine would be forced to cap the size of its army, constitutionally abandon its ambitions for NATO membership, and prohibit any NATO-country troops from being stationed on its territory during peacetime.
There is, of course, an economics angle, as was expected from a Trumpian initiative. The initial plan envisioned allocating the unfreezing of approximately $100 billion in frozen Russian state assets to a Ukrainian Reconstruction Fund, with an extraordinary twist: the U.S. would keep half the returns, and the rest would flow into joint U.S.–Russia investment projects. However, following objections from European leaders, both the profit-sharing arrangement and the U.S.-run reconstruction scheme were quietly scrapped.
A fourth, and equally humiliating point to Ukraine, is the proposition of a sweeping amnesty for all combatants. The plan even dictates Ukrainian domestic politics, including the timing of elections, which can be scheduled externally by Washington. As Chatham House observed, the plan seems to resemble a ‘brainchild of the Kremlin’.
Therefore, to muffle the harshness of the terms, Trump proposed a handful of symbolic humanitarian gestures. Most notably, Russia would return all Ukrainian detainees and hostages, including children taken across the border, an initiative Melania Trump has long called for. There is also a hint at a fast-tracked integration into the EU, though this contradicts the imposed military limitations and presupposes corruption hurdles that Kyiv currently struggles to clear.
But what does all this mean for Europe? Not surprisingly, European leaders were left in the dark about Trump’s plan.
In response to the sweeping international backlash, the E3 powers (Britain, France and Germany) produced their own counter-proposal. Their version amends some of the most humiliating points to Ukraine, particularly the sweeping amnesty and territorial concessions. And while it promises strong guarantees ‘on paper’, including a U.S. commitment modelled on NATO’s Article 5, it still effectively freezes the current front line and tells Kyiv it must not recover occupied territory by force.
Also, crucially, the counter-proposal insists that Russian sovereign assets remain frozen until Moscow pays for the damage it has inflicted, and that any use of the roughly €140 billion locked in European financial institutions be tied to reparations. While this appears to be Europe’s biggest bargaining chip, its leaders remain conflicted on its implementation on whether and how to play it. The risks are obvious. Turning frozen Russian reserves into collateral for a giant Ukraine package is legally risky and politically explosive. Belgium, which hosts Euroclear and would bear disproportionate liability, is warning that going too far and too fast could blow up in court and ‘derail’ any eventual peace deal. At the same time, if the EU, as has been suggested, retreats to traditional budget borrowing, it admits that its biggest leverage over Moscow is, in practice, unusable.
The reason European opinions remain divided is simple: not all Europeans are living the same war. Poland and the Baltic states, where the Russian threat is most immediate, want the frozen assets used now and reject any deal that secures Moscow’s gains. While Southern and some Western countries, facing war fatigue and economic strain, are more cautious. And Hungary, as predicted, pushes for a ‘quick peace,’ signalling openness to frameworks closer to Trump’s original text.
On the other side of the coin, the European counter-proposal outlines a pathway for Russia’s gradual reintegration into the global system through phased sanctions relief and a conditional return to forums like the G8. In that sense, yes, Russia’s long-term interests are being factored in, reflecting a view in many EU capitals that Europe cannot maintain an endless confrontation with a permanently isolated Russia.
Russia, too, seems open to engage with the Trump administration over a possible peace-plan with Ukraine. On Thursday, Putin finally broke his silence, saying the U.S. draft could serve as a foundation for future agreements, but it still needed some further work. And those terms are unchanged: no NATO membership for Ukraine, and the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from key territories.
For now, Europe’s future remains uncertain. And while pressures from the West will continue to steer the negotiations, the real question is not whether the war will end, but whether the peace that follows will stabilize Europe or fracture it further. And the news that Witkoff will travel to Russia hints that we are only entering the next phase of a long negotiation.