Ukraine has received a new peace proposal from the United States that requires Kyiv to cede land controlled by Russia and more than halve its army's size, a senior official briefed on the proposal told AFP on Wednesday.
The plan appears to repeat Russia's maximalist terms — demands consistently rejected by Ukraine as tantamount to capitulation.
The draft provides for "recognition of Crimea and other regions that the Russians have taken" and "reduction of the army to 400,000 personnel," the source, who did not wish to be identified, told AFP. The plan would also see Ukraine giving up all long-range weapons.
"An important nuance is that we don't understand whether this is really Trump's story" or "his entourage's," the official added.
It was "unclear" what Russia was supposed to do in return, the source said.
The reported plan came hours after the Kremlin said its stance on a potential peace agreement had not shifted since President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump's August summit in Alaska.
Speaking to reporters during his daily press briefing, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov neither confirmed nor denied an earlier report from Axios that said Washington and Moscow were secretly drafting a new, 28-point peace plan to end the war.
According to that report, U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and Putin envoy Kirill Dmitriev met in Miami late last month to discuss a framework modeled partly on Trump’s Gaza ceasefire deal.
Dmitriev told Axios that he was optimistic after spending three days “huddled” with Witkoff and other Trump advisers during his trip to the United States.
“We feel the Russian position is really being heard,” Dmitriev, who also heads Russia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, was quoted as saying.
Moscow has repeatedly insisted that any peace settlement must recognize its control over occupied Ukrainian territory, impose neutrality on Kyiv, limit Ukraine’s military and lift Western sanctions.
Dmitriev said the prospective ceasefire plan would build on unspecified principles reached between Trump and Putin at their Alaska summit in August and produce a written proposal ahead of their next meeting, which is expected to take place at some point in the future in Budapest, Hungary.
“It’s actually a much broader framework,” the Kremlin envoy told Axios, adding that the proposal would not only address the ongoing war in Ukraine “but also how to restore U.S.-Russia ties [and] address Russia’s security concerns.”
Axios did not provide details of the 28-point plan, saying only that it covers four areas: peace in Ukraine, security guarantees, European security and future U.S. relations with Russia and Ukraine.
Trump has repeatedly vowed to bring a quick end to the war in Ukraine, raising anxiety in European capitals that any hastily brokered deal could cement Russia’s territorial gains.
However, Trump himself has admitted that peace negotiations with Moscow are taking longer than he had initially hoped.
Axios reported that the White House believes it may be able to bring Kyiv and European allies on board with its new plan and expects the plan to be revised based on their input. An unnamed Ukrainian official was quoted as saying, “We know the Americans are working on something.”
Witkoff was expected to meet President Volodymyr Zelensky in Turkey on Wednesday but postponed the trip. The Ukrainian official told Axios that Witkoff had met Zelensky’s national security adviser, Rustem Umerov, in Miami earlier this week.
Separately, media outlets reported Wednesday that two senior U.S. Army leaders made an unannounced trip to Kyiv for talks with Zelensky, top military commanders and lawmakers.
One report said U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll was expected to meet Russian officials at a later date to encourage greater responsiveness to U.S. military intermediaries after earlier diplomatic channels had faltered.
AFP contributed reporting.
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