KYIV — Ukrainians were in the dark Thursday.
As the latest wave of Russian drones plunged parts of the country into frigid blackouts, there was disquiet in Kyiv and across Europe over the new 28-point “peace plan” approved by President Donald Trump, as a senior administration official told NBC News, after weeks of secret negotiations.
Ukraine and its allies on the continent have been frozen out of talks between Washington and Moscow before, and there was conflicting information about whether they were involved this time.
No details have been officially released on the details of the plan, but President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office said that he had “received a draft plan from the American side” in a statement on Telegram. The statement added that he agreed “to work on the plan’s points in a way that would bring a dignified end to the war.”
The swirling sense that the plan may resemble a Russian wishlist threatened a nightmare scenario for Ukraine at a moment of particular peril, with its government mired in a corruption scandal and its military struggling to hold off damaging battlefield setbacks.
Zelenskyy has come under intense pressure this week from his political opponents, but even they were extremely wary of any deal that would necessitate their country’s capitulation.
“I am not entirely sure who has actually worked on this particular plan,” opposition lawmaker Vadym Ivanchenko said in an interview. “No one has presented it officially or explained the logic behind its points.” The points currently being discussed in the media, he said, appear to “be at odds with Ukraine’s interests.”
The U.S. official who spoke to NBC News about the plan said that both Russian and Ukrainian officials were involved in these discussions, but that was at odds with a source close to the Ukrainian government and a European official with knowledge of the matter. The Kremlin was noncommittal.
“Is it true or not?” Sergei Markov, a commentator and a former adviser to President Vladimir Putin, told NBC News of whether a deal had been struck. “We don’t know.”
In Kyiv, the timing of the plan was viewed as no coincidence, the source close to the Ukrainian government said, likely an attempt by the Kremlin to take full advantage at an acutely challenging time: Not only do the drones keep falling on its cities, but also Russian forces appear poised to overrun the strategic town of Pokrovsk, a key battlefield victory that could open up the rest of Ukraine’s Donbas heartland to the Russian war machine — if it isn’t dealt away under pressure from Washington.
Meanwhile, Zelenskyy has been rocked by a $100 million corruption scandal implicating one of his close associates, senior government officials and the country’s vital state-run energy company. He is also facing pressure to fire his all-powerful chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, often seen as the power behind the throne.
Ivanchenko, a lawmaker for the Batkivshchyna political party led by former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, conceded that “we find ourselves in a somewhat vulnerable position.”
It is “not a catastrophe, not a defeat,” he said. “But also not the position of strength in which we would ideally enter any negotiations.”
Asked Wednesday whether “only” Trump can end this war, European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas gave a blunt “no.”
“In order to end this war, you need the Ukrainians and the Europeans to agree to those plans,” she told reporters. A succession of European foreign ministers, meeting with Kallas in Brussels, expressed caution but made clear they would not allow Kyiv to be forced into capitulation.
Ukrainian officials have little choice, in public at least, to be positive about U.S. efforts — Zelenskyy found that out the hard way through an Oval Office humiliation by Trump. Since then, a series of summits and meetings have seen the American president appear to waver between favoring Russia or Ukraine and then slipping back again.
“I have a good relationship with President Putin, but I’m a little disappointed in President Putin right now. He knows that,” Trump told the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum on Wednesday.
There was an outward message of positivity with senior Pentagon figures visiting Kyiv, led by Army Secretary Dan Driscoll. And Secretary of State Marco Rubio struck a balanced tone on X, saying that a “durable peace will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions”.
Alyona Getmanchuk, Ukraine’s ambassador to NATO, said in an interview Wednesday that Trump’s “determination to seek a solid diplomatic solution is truly commendable.” Nevertheless, she cautioned, “What is crucial for Ukraine is that any peace plan respects our sovereignty and territorial integrity, and prevents future Russian attacks, ensuring that Ukraine is not made an easy target for the next round of aggression.”
Indeed, it’s not just Ukrainians who find these proposals alarming. Many European governments see the idea of ceding territory to Russia, and placing future limits on Ukraine’s capacity to defend itself, as not only rewarding Putin’s aggression, but also emboldening him to strike elsewhere in Europe.
That’s why the reported terms of Trump’s plan create “an extremely dangerous international precedent,” according to Danylo Metelskyi, the director of the Center of Social Transformations, a nongovernmental organization based in Kyiv. “If territories seized by force remain under the control of the aggressor state, it undermines the entire postwar global order.”
Russia’s position in all of this does not appear to have changed at all: It is still demanding “the elimination of the root causes of this conflict,” as Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Thursday. That is: Ukraine should cede territory, weaken its military and promise never to join NATO.
Russia has “to navigate between their maximalist objectives” and not risking Trump “supporting Ukraine more than ever,” according to James Nixey, a longtime Moscow-watcher and an independent consultant based in England. “So it’s tricky for the Russians too. They don’t know how far they can push — but they’re sure as hell trying.”
The question now is: Will this “go the way of previous attempts at a peace process? Rejected by Ukraine and Europe,” Nixey added. “Or, will the pressure — battlefield pressure, societal pressure, U.S. pressure — be too much for Ukraine and it has to de facto surrender? Because that is what this is.”
Daryna Mayer reported from Kyiv, Ukraine, and Alexander Smith and Elmira Aliieva reported from London.
