The Trump administration has been secretly working in consultation with Russia to draft a new plan to end the war in Ukraine, U.S. and Russian officials tell Axios.
The 28-point U.S. plan is inspired by President Trump's successful push for a deal in Gaza. A top Russian official told Axios he's optimistic about the plan. It's not yet clear how Ukraine and its European backers will feel about it.
The plan's 28 points fall into four general buckets, sources tell Axios: peace in Ukraine, security guarantees, security in Europe, and future U.S. relations with Russia and Ukraine.
It's unclear how the plan approaches contentious issues such as territorial control in eastern Ukraine — where Russian forces have been inching forward, but still control far less land than the Kremlin has demanded.
Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff is leading the drafting of the plan and has discussed it extensively with Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev, a U.S. official said.
Dmitriev, who runs Russia's sovereign wealth fund and is also deeply involved in diplomacy over Ukraine, told Axios in an interview on Monday that he spent three days huddled with Witkoff and other members of Trump's team when Dmitriev visited Miami from Oct. 24-26.
Witkoff was expected to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday in Turkey but postponed his trip, Ukrainian and U.S. officials said. Witkoff discussed the plan with Zelensky's national security adviser, Rustem Umerov, in a meeting earlier this week in Miami, a Ukrainian official confirmed to Axios.
Dmitriev told Axios the basic idea was to take the principles Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to in Alaska in August and produce a proposal "to address the Ukraine conflict, but also how to restore U.S.-Russia ties [and] address Russia's security concerns." The aim is to produce a written document along those lines before Trump and Putin next meet, according to Dmitriev. Plans for a Budapest summit between the leaders remain on hold, for now.
Dmitriev said this effort was entirely unrelated to the U.K.-led push to draft a Gaza-style peace plan for Ukraine, which he said had no chance of success because it disregards Russia's positions. The Russian envoy said the U.S. side was now in the process of explaining the "benefits" of its current approach to the Ukrainians and the Europeans.
Posted by John3262005
4 Comments
I doubt this will go anywhere. The reality is that Russia can’t stop fighting because if they did the whole thing would be a total strategic loss for them. There’s nothing that can be offered to them other than the whole of Ukraine that would change that equation. Unless Russia has reached the point where they are basically folding and ready to give up and go home with that loss.
I’d be willing to bet small amounts of money that Tariffs McDumbass will want a ceasefire with Russia keeping whatever territory they’ve taken so far.
Gonna stab Ukraine in the back i guess
All of Russia’s prior proposals requested Ukraine to disarm and sacrifice more land. It is also strange that these “peace talks” fail to include Ukraine in them…
Would even a Northern Ireland agreement work? Or will this end up like the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact? Putin straight up plagiarized Goebbels propaganda about his ethnic minority’s welfare across the border to justify aggression.
The world order feels fragile right now. Even within NATO, you have Putinist apologists like Orban and Trump and Germany is in a weird position. There is an untalked amount of Russophilia in the East coupled with the rising populism of AfD.