US President Donald Trump has given Ukraine less than a week to accept a plan widely seen to favor Russia to end the war, as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the country was facing “one of the most difficult moments” in its history.
“We’ve had a lot of deadlines, and if things are going well, we tend to extend them. But Thursday is the deadline,” the president said in a radio interview with Fox News. CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.
President Zelenskiy addressed the nation by video on Friday, saying the United States’ plan to end the war would mean losing its dignity and a key ally.
Trump’s 28-point plan puts pressure on Kiev to cede territory, limit the size of its military and commit to not joining NATO in exchange for an end to the war, all long-standing demands of the Kremlin.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told a Security Council briefing late Friday that he accepted the U.S.-proposed plan for Ukraine and believed it “could form the basis of a final peace settlement.”
The Russian president said he was ready to “show flexibility” agreed at a summit with Trump in Alaska in August, but added that Russia had not “substantively” discussed the deal with the United States.
“The pressure on Ukraine is now at its most intense. Ukraine may now face a very difficult choice: either lose its dignity, risk losing an important partner, 28 difficult points, or face an extremely harsh winter,” President Zelenskiy said in a video address.
Zelenskiy said Ukraine would “work calmly and swiftly” with the United States and its partners to end the war. Mr. Zelenskiy spoke about the plan with U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday.
Since details of President Trump’s proposal were released, many European leaders have spoken out in support of Ukraine, vowing to support Kiev and insisting that decisions about the country’s fate should not be made without Ukraine’s input.
Still, the EU appears to have been left in the cold as the US has yet to share any official documents, European Council President Antonio Costa said on Friday.
In a joint telephone conversation with Prime Minister Zelenskiy early Friday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer “agreed to continue pursuing the goal of safeguarding the vital interests of Europe and Ukraine in the long term.”
A statement from the German government spokesperson’s office said this includes “ensuring that the line of contact is the starting point of understanding and that the Ukrainian military can continue to effectively defend Ukraine’s sovereignty,” and is different from the U.S. proposal for Ukraine to withdraw from parts of its territory.
“Nothing should be said about Ukraine without Ukraine,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a post on X, adding that European leaders will meet on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Johannesburg on Saturday to discuss the proposal.
President Trump appears to be giving Russia just about everything it wants, and much of its language resembles the extremist positions Russia took at the Istanbul meeting in 2022, shortly after the invasion, when Russian forces were occupying more of Ukraine.
Like the proposal developed by the Trump administration that led to the ceasefire in Gaza, the Ukraine plan is like a bullet point list, listing commitments that both sides would make to permanently end the conflict.
Ukraine’s plan, seen by CNN, calls for a cessation of fighting, global funding for reconstruction, and a council led by the US president to oversee the commitments. The authenticity of the draft plan was confirmed by US officials.
Many of the ideas proposed in the 28-point plan have been rejected in previous negotiations.
Under this plan, Russian-occupied Crimea, Luhansk, and Donetsk would be recognized as “de facto Russia, including the United States,” but this had been a red line for Kiev to cross until now.
The plan calls for Ukrainian forces to withdraw from the areas they currently control in eastern Donetsk, “and this withdrawal zone would be considered a neutral demilitarized buffer zone and internationally recognized as territory belonging to the Russian Federation.”
The draft plan states that Ukraine will not join NATO, that NATO will not station troops in Ukraine, that the size of the Ukrainian army be limited to 600,000, and that Ukrainian elections be held within 100 days, which would be extremely difficult to organize.
It also outlines Russia’s return to the global economy, including lifting sanctions and inviting it back to the G8.
In a Fox News interview on Friday, President Trump said that even though the plan appears to offer significant concessions to Russia, President Putin “doesn’t want another war” and is “punished.”
Zelenskiy said he would work around the clock to move the plan forward, but said he had no intention of betraying his country.
“I’m going to present arguments, I’m going to persuade, I’m going to present alternatives, but I’m not going to give our adversaries any reason to say that Ukraine doesn’t want peace, that we’re obstructing the process, that Ukraine isn’t ready for diplomacy,” Zelenskiy continued.
This story has been updated. CNN’s Samantha Woldenberg, Jennifer Hansler, Darya Tarasova, Kevin Liptak and Natasha Bertrand contributed to this report.
