President Zelensky has received a peace plan draft from the US and will speak with US President Donald Trump in the coming days, his office said.
The US believes that the draft could “reinvigorate diplomatic efforts,” the Presidential Office wrote on Thursday evening.
“The President of Ukraine outlined the fundamental principles important to our people, and following today’s meeting, we agreed to work on the points of the plan in such a way that it would bring about a dignified end to the war,” the statement on Telegram read.
“Ukraine has been striving for peace since the very first moments of the Russian invasion, and we support all substantive proposals capable of bringing real peace closer,” it continued.
“Since the beginning of this year, Ukraine has backed President Trump’s proposals aimed at ending the bloodshed. We remain ready to work constructively now with the American side and with our partners in Europe and around the world to achieve a result that delivers peace.”
The statement concluded by saying that Zelensky will meet with Trump in the coming days to discuss “the available diplomatic opportunities and the key points necessary to reach peace.”
The office did not detail any of the proposals in the plans, which are thought to be heavily slanted towards Moscow’s maximalist demands.
On Wednesday, it was reported that Russian and US officials had worked together to quietly draft a plan to end the war in Ukraine that would amount to capitulation from Kyiv.
Some of the reported terms of the deal, which was said to have been developed by Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and Kremlin fixer Kirill Dmitriev, included demands that Kyiv scale back its armed forces, stop receiving Western weapons and forgo hosting foreign troops, according to the Financial Times (FT).
The Telegraph reported on a provision which could see Moscow gaining control of eastern Donbas in exchange for a “rental fee,” while Kyiv would retain legal ownership over the territories.
Meanwhile, Axios said that Ukrainian forces would clear the remaining non-occupied areas of Donbas to turn them into a “demilitarized zone” in exchange for Moscow granting concessions in the partially-occupied Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.
A source close to Kyiv said that the timing suggested the Kremlin was hoping to exploit the perceived weaknesses in Ukraine’s leadership amid a snowballing corruption scandal, which could see further changes in the government’s top team.
European and US allies asserted that they had not been informed of the closed-door negotiations.
A source told RBC-Ukraine that Zelensky would be pressed by senior US generals to accept the arrangements outlined in the draft deal in a meeting late on Thursday.
