U.S., Ukraine move forward on peace deal, but Russian rejection is likely

Momentum is picking up for the new U.S.-led peace deal for Ukraine, with progress made over the weekend in Geneva and new meetings involving the United States, Russian and Ukrainian delegations in the United Arab Emirates. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is even expected to travel to the United States in the coming days to meet with President Donald Trump on the deal.

All these negotiations may be for nothing, however, as the work to make the 28-point U.S. plan more acceptable to Ukraine is precisely what will doom it with Russia, analysts say.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that the U.S. had made “tremendous progress” toward a peace deal by bringing Russia and Ukraine to the table.

“There are a few delicate, but not insurmountable, details that must be sorted out and will require further talks between Ukraine, Russia, and the United States,” she said in a post on X. The Ukrainians have said the crucial matter of territory will be resolved directly between Trump and Zelensky.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he expected the Americans to soon present to Russia their interim version of the deal following input from the Ukrainians and Europeans, but warned that if it strayed from what Putin demanded at the Alaska summit in August, there would be a problem.

“Because if the spirit and letter of the Anchorage agreement are erased, based on the key understandings contained therein, then, of course, we’ll be in a fundamentally different situation,” he said.

The work to come up with a peace plan that would somehow be acceptable to all sides and end nearly four years of war came as dozens of Russian missiles slammed into Kyiv overnight, hitting apartment buildings and power infrastructure.

Lt. Col. Jeff Tolbert, a spokesman for Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll, said the talks continuing through Tuesday with the Russian delegation in Abu Dhabi “are going well and we remain optimistic.” He added they were synchronized with the White House.

A Ukrainian delegation is also in Abu Dhabi, a U.S. official said, “and has been in contact with Secretary Driscoll and his team.” He, like others interviewed, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Top Ukrainian official Rustem Umerov said Tuesday that Zelensky would be headed to the U.S. to finalize the deal with Trump this month.

The original plan, which was widely criticized by the Ukrainians and Europeans as being too pro-Russian and a capitulation for Ukraine, was endorsed Friday by Russian President Vladimir Putin as a possible basis for peace. Most analysts think the latest changes will be unacceptable to Moscow, leaving Russia with the choice of trying to revise the draft deal once more or rejecting it outright.

The latest flurry of chaotic, pre-Thanksgiving U.S. diplomacy aimed at ending the war could in the end fizzle, just as previous efforts have.

In his comments to the Russian Security Council on Friday, Putin declared that Russia was “happy” to fight on and defeat Ukraine through military means. “But, as I’ve said many times before, we’re also ready for peace talks and peaceful resolution of problems.”

As U.S. officials scrambled to try to bring the sides closer, Russia launched a punishing missile and drone attack against the Ukrainian capital overnight, striking residential apartment buildings in several neighborhoods and killing at least seven people, the latest in a series of attacks on civilian infrastructure that seem designed to increase the pressure on Ukraine’s civilian population to break the nation’s resistance. Russia also targeted several other regions, including Chernihiv, Dnipro and Kharkiv.

A former senior Kremlin official with knowledge of the talks said that the original 28-point plan was just a “starting point” for Russia, with some elements acceptable to Moscow and others not.

“Putin also thinks that no one is taking his position seriously. Putin does not really want to continue the war, but he’s an opportunist. He really has to receive something meaningful in return for this war,” the former official said, dismissing Ukrainian and European efforts to shape the process.

“It’s a pro-Russian plan, but Russia is in a stronger position, so any plan would have to be pro-Russian because this is more realistic,” the former official said.

Russia has consistently criticized any European input into negotiations, insisting that the European nations are warmongers only seeking to perpetuate the war with their support of Ukraine.

Red lines for Russia in the negotiations include the move reported earlier by The Washington Post to, for now, put aside Moscow’s contentious demand that Ukraine withdraw from territory in the eastern Donbas region that Russia has failed to conquer, and instead for this to be decided in talks between Trump and Zelensky. Russia would also reject the call for Ukraine’s NATO aspirations to be decided based on NATO’s rules that would nix the outright veto on membership from the earlier draft.

In the Sunday talks, Ukrainian negotiators told their U.S. counterparts that Kyiv would willing to start discussions from its current military positions, not on Russian demands that Ukraine surrender the portion of the Donbas region it does not control, as stipulated in the earlier draft of the deal.

The former senior Kremlin official said Russia may be willing to freeze the front lines in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. “But the most complicated piece is Donetsk. I think compromise on Donetsk would be possible but only at the end of the negotiations.”

The Donetsk region is part of Donbas.

The U.S. negotiators are aware of the sensitivity of territorial concessions for the Ukrainians, said Oleksandr Bevz, a Ukrainian government adviser who participated in the Geneva talks, and realize that such questions could stir social unrest or military protests in Ukraine.

Tatiana Stanovaya, senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, described the original 28-point plan as no more than an expanded version of the proposal Russia handed to special envoy Steve Witkoff when he visited Putin at the Kremlin in April - a plan that then, as now, was swiftly rejected by Ukraine and Europe.

“From Moscow’s point of view, little has changed since April, apart from the fact that Ukraine’s position has worsened,” she said. When Putin said the plan could be a basis of discussions, it was clearly with the idea of making it still more favorable to Russia.

After all, pointed out Alexander Baunov, also from Carnegie, just the fact that the 28-point plan has been made public means Russia cannot accept worse. “Everyone has already read the 28 points and must understand that proud Russia will no longer bend in public view. So, either more or at least equal, either better or nothing,” he said.

In fact, even that plan was not good enough, said a Russian academic close to senior Russian diplomats, since the Kremlin has long insisted on dismantling Zelensky’s government and its military might.

“They are not making any concessions. They are just going to rebuild their forces and they will be supplied by the European defense sector, and then when they’ve collected their strength they will continue the war. At least this is how many experts around the Russian leadership see it,” the academic said, referring to Ukraine.

Over the past year of peace initiatives, both the Russians and the Ukrainians have been at pains to avoid appearing to Trump as any kind of obstacle to peace.

Trump has at times shown signs of impatience with Putin, who repeatedly deflected his calls for a ceasefire or a freeze in fighting at current battle positions, and the White House last month imposed sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies.

But much of the U.S. pressure throughout 2025 has fallen on Ukraine, the victim of Russia’s aggression, from a tense White House meeting in February when Trump told Zelensky that “you don’t have the cards,” to abandoning calls for a ceasefire after his August summit with Putin in Alaska. When the latest peace deal was presented, it was accompanied by threats to withdraw all support.

“It’s important for Putin not to lose Trump,” the academic said. “And I think he would not like Russia to be seen by Trump as the main obstacle to peace. Therefore he is ready to show some kind of flexibility. But on what scale and in what areas we don’t know yet.”

Putin’s final position is likely to hinge on his view of Russia’s “reserves of stability” under the growing weight of sanctions, he said. “If he considers that problems are building up and next year will be more difficult, this could be a stimulus to take a more flexible position,” he said.

Russian analyst Vladimir Pastukhov, an honorary professor at University College London, said that while the 28-point plan failed to meet Russia’s central goals when it launched the war - to topple Ukraine’s leaders, slash its army to a rump and neutralize it - it might still be acceptable.

The important aspect of the plan is how it confers legitimacy on Putin, could lead to Ukraine’s surrender of Donbas and legitimize the idea of Ukraine being dismembered.

“Trump through this plan legitimized the discussions around a lot of things that were taboo - the division of Ukraine, the possibility of changing the status quo by force, and so on. That’s the point of the plan, not any specific details.”

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Mary Ilyushina contributed to this report.