A new peace proposal for Ukraine drafted by the Trump administration would require the country to cede the eastern Donbas region and to limit the size of its military in exchange for security guarantees from the United States, according to a Western official familiar with the document.
The 28-point plan, which President Donald Trump has reviewed, is the White House’s latest attempt to bring Russia’s war in Ukraine to an end. Some of the proposal’s provisions — including territorial concessions in areas not currently held by Russia — have previously been nonstarters with the Ukrainians. But US officials see a new window of opportunity to restart peace discussions.
The plan is still in the framework stage, and its many points haven’t been finalized. CNN has not reviewed the proposal and has reached out to the White House for comment on it.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested late Wednesday the document was a “list of potential ideas” rather than a completed proposal.
“Ending a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and realistic ideas,” he wrote in a post on X. “And achieving a durable peace will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will continue to develop a list of potential ideas for ending this war based on input from both sides of this conflict.”
Still, the proposal in its current form is likely to draw criticism from Ukraine and its backers since it would require significant land concessions. The two regions that form the Donbas, Luhansk and Donetsk, are still partially held by Ukraine.
In the other contested territories of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, the current battle lines would be frozen, according to the new proposal. Moscow has previously suggested Kyiv concede both of these regions in their entirety.
Ukraine would also be required to reduce the size of its military and roll back some of its military capabilities, including certain powerful weaponry it has received over the course of the war.
Other points in the document include the status of the Russian language, and the Russian Orthodox Church, in Ukraine when the war ends.
The plan also includes US-backed security guarantees meant to ensure Russia cannot invade further or expand its war into Europe. The details were described by the Western official familiar with the document.
The proposal echoes a peace proposal from talks in Istanbul in the early weeks of the war in 2022, repeating some of Moscow’s wider geopolitical demands about Ukraine’s armed forces and allegiances.
‘Groundhog Day’
A European diplomat echoed the Western official’s description of some of the details of the proposal. The person told CNN that the new effort, which repeats many of Moscow’s maximalist demands dating back to 2022, reminded them of “Groundhog Day,” a film in which events repeat themselves over and over.
A European envoy based in Ukraine said the plan had caught the diplomatic community completely by surprise.
“This has all been gone through before and rejected, and now we’re back to square one,” the diplomat said. “For the Ukrainians, it is just a non-starter and with good reason. It would just be inviting the Russians to come back again at a future date. It would be political suicide for any Ukrainian leader (to accept it), and it would be military suicide to hand over that fortified area.”
The diplomat also described foreign ministries in Europe and elsewhere calling contacts in Washington for guidance on the plan only to be told they were equally in the dark.
“We have heard directly from people in the State Department and on Capitol Hill that nobody knew anything about this plan until it was leaked yesterday,” the diplomat said.
“People who should have known about it, knew nothing about it … There’s a lot of annoyance and confusion.”
In her first public comments since reports of the plan emerged, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, told reporters Thursday that “for any plan to work, it needs Ukrainians and Europeans on board.” Poland’s foreign minister Radosław Sikorski, meanwhile, told CNN that any plans should involve Europe and leave Kyiv with the capacity to defend itself.
“We have a much bigger stake in this than the US, and therefore Ukraine, but also Europe, has to be involved,” he said.
Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, has been leading the effort, CNN reported on Wednesday, with a source saying the negotiations accelerated this week as the administration feels the Kremlin has signaled a renewed openness to a deal.
Meanwhile, a Pentagon delegation led by Army Secretary Dan Driscoll was in Kyiv this week for discussions with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other top officials, including about the new plan.
US officials viewed the trip as a way to restart peace talks after they stalled over the last several months.
CNN’s Andrew Carey, Nick Paton Walsh, Brian Abel, and Catherine Nicholls contributed to this report.
This story has been updated with additional information.
