U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a meeting to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, on August 15, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
Amid reports that the United States and Russia have secretly developed a peace plan to end the war, Ukraine could face tough choices, including significant concessions to Moscow.
Senior U.S. military officials are in Ukraine on Thursday “on a fact-finding mission to meet with Ukrainian officials and discuss efforts to end the war with Russia,” a military spokesperson said.
The visit came a day after media reported that the United States and Russia held secret talks without Kiev’s involvement and developed a new 28-point peace plan for Ukraine.
The 28-point plan, first reported by Axios but also reported by other media outlets including the Financial Times and Reuters, citing anonymous sources, reportedly includes conditions such as Ukraine ceding territory in the eastern Donbas region to Russia, giving up certain categories of weapons and reducing the size of its military by 50%.
A report in the Telegraph suggested that Russia could take control of the Donbas region, effectively making it pay rent for the land, even though Ukraine maintains legal ownership. CNBC was unable to confirm the information contained in the media report.
Anonymous sources told Reuters that Kiev had received “signals” about a series of U.S. proposals to end the war, but that Kiev had no role in preparing the proposals.
The Kremlin on Wednesday denied there had been any “innovations regarding a possible peace plan” since Russian President Vladimir Putin met with US President Donald Trump in August. Asked specifically about the Axios report, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he had nothing to share publicly.
Meanwhile, the White House has not explicitly acknowledged the existence of a 28-point peace plan, said to be modeled on the Gaza peace agreement, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio has confirmed that a new proposal is under consideration.
“Ending a war as complex and deadly as the Ukraine war requires a broad exchange of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote in a post on X on Wednesday night.
“Achieving a lasting peace will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. That’s why we have developed, and will continue to develop, a list of potential ideas to end this war, based on input from both sides of this conflict.”
Is Ukraine cornered?
Ukraine’s leadership has not publicly commented on the 28-point plan, but the peace proposal is expected to be part of Thursday’s talks between President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and a delegation of U.S. military officials.
“Only President Trump and the United States have enough power to end this war,” Zelenskyy said Wednesday.
He said Kiev “supported all decisive measures and[President Trump’s]leadership and all strong and fair proposals aimed at ending this war,” adding that Ukraine was “ready to engage in other meaningful forms that could produce results.”
However, Ukraine’s First Deputy Foreign Minister Serhiy Kislitsya directly addressed reports about the peace plan, suggesting in a post on X that Russia was behind the push to hype “factories of unrealistic plans.”
It is highly uncertain whether Ukraine will accept such concessions to end the war, and pushback is likely.
However, Kiev finds itself in a vulnerable position given its dependence on military aid from the United States, and although it remains resolutely supported by its European allies, military and financial aid is now slower to materialize than at the beginning of the war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy gestures during a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House during negotiations to end the Russian war in Ukraine, August 18, 2025, in Washington, DC.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
Still, European diplomats appear frustrated by reports that the peace plan lacks Ukrainian and regional involvement, with EU foreign policy chief Kaja Karas commenting on Thursday that “for any plan to work, Ukrainians and Europeans need to be on board.”
“In this war, there is one aggressor and one victim. So far I have not heard any concessions from the Russian side,” he told reporters.
Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War said that if the reports are true, the 28-nation peace plan “would amount to a complete surrender of Ukraine and set the conditions for a new Russian invasion of Ukraine.”
“The reported peace proposal would deprive Ukraine of critical defensive positions and capabilities needed to protect it from future Russian aggression, clearly without anything in return,” ISW analysts said on Wednesday.
They pointed out that “giving this important land to Russia without any obvious compromises would save Russia time, effort, and human resources that could be used elsewhere in Ukraine in the event of a new invasion.”
ISW concluded that this plan, if verified, shows that Russia’s extremist territorial claims against Ukraine have remained essentially unchanged since the initial invasion in 2022. “This reported peace plan is essentially the same as Russia’s Istanbul Demand for 2022, which Russia presented to Ukraine when the battlefield situation appeared to favor Russia.”
