The Kremlin has barely lifted a finger in recent days, yet a leaked 28-point US-Russia peace proposal has thrown Washington, Kyiv and European capitals into disarray. The plan, drafted by US property developer Steve Witkoff and Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, has created conditions that strongly favour Vladimir Putin, according to analysts.
Ukraine is now cornered into weighing terms it cannot accept, with the threat of losing its most important ally – the United States – hanging over its head. President Donald Trump has embraced the plan, and on Sunday he returned to portraying Ukraine as the obstacle to ending the war, complaining on Truth Social that Kyiv’s leadership had “EXPRESSED ZERO GRATITUDE FOR OUR EFFORTS”.
Moscow has remained strikingly quiet, with the foreign ministry feigning ignorance before Putin himself said the proposals “could form the basis of a final peace settlement”. The structure of the US negotiation process works to Russia’s advantage: Washington wants Kyiv to approve the plan before a US delegation travels to Moscow to finalise terms.
The Kremlin believes any move by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to accept something close to the draft would trigger political turmoil in Ukraine – an outcome Moscow would welcome. Putin knows Ukraine cannot simply abandon the talks, as it remains reliant on US-supplied weapons and intelligence and could face a catastrophic winter if its central ally walked away.
Even if Kyiv were to support the plan, analysts expect Putin to demand further concessions. Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, described the proposal as clumsily drafted, leaving too much room for interpretation. She said Putin is unlikely to retreat from his main goal of subjugating Ukraine and will push for a revised version that more fully reflects Russia’s interests. If diplomacy stalls, she said Putin would see “no problem with continuing the war”.
Ukraine’s hope, as in past rounds of diplomacy, is that with its European allies it can reshape the proposal into something acceptable for Kyiv and persuade Trump to back that version. On Monday, the US and Ukraine produced a 19-point counter-proposal, but the path to a settlement remains fraught.
