US and Russia draw up peace plan for Ukraine that includes big concessions from Kyiv

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The U.S. and Russia have drawn up a plan aimed at ending the war in Ukraine that calls for major concessions from Kyiv, according to a person familiar with the matter, including granting some demands the Kremlin has made repeatedly since the full-scale invasion began nearly four years ago.

The person confirmed that the emerging framework includes promises from Moscow that it will make no further attacks, something White House officials view as a concession by Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has repeatedly justified the war by claiming Ukraine was a state created artificially by Soviet leaders. The framework also includes economic incentives for both sides.

In other developments, Russia’s chief military officer, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, announced that Moscow’s forces had taken full control of Kupiansk in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, although he also said that some Ukrainian troops remained in the city.

The general staff for Ukraine’s armed forces denied Gerasimov’s claims and said that Kyiv’s forces remained in control of Kupiansk.

An ‘aggressive timeline’ for peace

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff have been quietly working on the peace plan for a month, receiving input from both Ukrainians and Russians on terms that are acceptable to each side, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday.

U.S. President Donald Trump has been briefed on the proposal and supports it, she added.

“It is a good plan for both Russia and Ukraine, and we believe it should be acceptable to both sides. And we are working hard to get it done,” Leavitt said.

The latest Trump administration push for peace has piled more pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is marshaling his country’s defenses against Russia’s bigger army, visiting European leaders to ensure they continue their support for Ukraine and navigating a major corruption scandal that has caused public outrage.

U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll was also in Kyiv on Thursday to give a new push to peace efforts and assess the reality on the ground in Ukraine. Zelenskyy confirmed that he met with Driscoll and “discussed options for achieving real peace.”

“Our teams — of Ukraine and the United States — will work on the provisions of the plan to end the war. We are ready for constructive, honest and swift work,” he wrote in a post on X.

Zelenskyy’s office also said in a statement that the Ukrainian president expected to talk to Trump in coming days about diplomatic opportunities.

European diplomats urge wider consultations

As reports of the Russia-U.S. peace plan emerged, blindsided European diplomats insisted they and Ukraine must be consulted.

European leaders have already been alarmed this year by indications that Trump’s administration might be sidelining them and Zelenskyy in its push to stop the fighting. Trump’s at-times conciliatory approach to Putin has fueled those concerns, but Trump adopted a tougher line last month when he announced heavy sanctions on Russia’s vital oil sector that come into force Friday.

“For any plan to work, it needs Ukrainians and Europeans on board,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said at the start of a meeting in Brussels of the 27-nation bloc’s foreign ministers. She added: “We haven’t heard of any concessions on the Russian side.”

German Foreign Minister Johannes Wadephul said he talked by phone Thursday with Witkoff and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan to discuss “our various current efforts to end Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and thus finally put an end to the immeasurable human suffering.”

Plan would give Russia control of the Donbas

It was not clear whether the foreign ministers had seen the peace plan, which was first reported by Axios. The proposal was drawn up by U.S. and Russian envoys, and was said to include forcing Ukraine to cede territory, a prospect Zelenskyy has ruled out.

The Trump administration’s diplomatic efforts this year to stop the fighting have so far come to nothing.

The proposal, which could still be changed, calls in part for Ukraine to cede territory to Russia and to abandon certain weaponry, according to the person familiar with the matter, who had been briefed on the contours of the plan but was not authorized to comment publicly. It would also include the rollback of some critical U.S. military assistance.

Russia, as part of the proposal, would be given effective control of the entire eastern Donbas region, Ukraine’s industrial heartland made up of the Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk regions, even though Ukraine still holds part of it. Putin has listed the capture of the Donbas as the key goal of the invasion.

Witkoff and Kirill Dmitriev, a close adviser to Putin, have been key to drafting the proposal, according to the person.

But a peace deal that requires Kyiv to hand over territory to Russia would not only be deeply unpopular with Ukrainians, it also would be illegal under Ukraine’s constitution. Zelenskyy has repeatedly ruled out such a possibility.

Meanwhile, Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, retired Gen. Keith Kellogg, has informed the White House that he will leave his post in January, according to a senior Trump administration official who requested anonymity to discuss the move, which has not been formally announced.

Kellogg, who was initially named special envoy for Ukraine and Russia during Trump’s presidential transition, took a less high profile role as Witkoff, a real estate developer turned diplomat, emerged as the president’s chief interlocutor with Putin and his advisers.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that there were “no consultations per se currently underway” with the U.S. on ending the war in Ukraine.

EU accuses Russia of insincerity

Though the European diplomats appeared caught by surprise, reported elements of the plan were not new. Trump said last month that the Donbas region should be “cut up,” leaving most of it in Russian hands.

EU diplomats have accused Putin of being insincere in saying he wants peace but refusing to compromise in negotiations while sustaining Russia’s grinding war of attrition in Ukraine.

Kallas, the EU’s chief diplomat, chided Putin’s forces for continuing to target civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, a day after a strike on the western city of Ternopil killed 26 people and wounded 93 others. About two dozen people were still missing.

Kallas said that “if Russia really wanted peace, it could have … agreed to (an) unconditional ceasefire already some time ago.”

Trump has stopped sending military aid directly to Ukraine, with European countries taking up the slack by buying weaponry for Ukraine from the United States. That has given Europe leverage in talks on ending the conflict.

Russia reports gains in two regions

In a video released by the Kremlin, Gerasimov told Putin, who attended the meeting dressed in combat fatigues, that Russian troops had taken Kupiansk and that they continued “to destroy Ukrainian forces encircled on the left bank of the Oskil River.”

He also said Russian troops had taken 80% the Ukrainian city of Vovchansk, also in the Kharkiv region, and 70% of the fiercely contested city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region.

The Ukrainian military denied all of Gerasimov’s claims. In a statement issued late Thursday, the general staff said Kupiansk remained under Kyiv’s control and that efforts were underway to eliminate the enemy presence in the city and its suburbs.

The city of Kupiansk and the territories around it were under Russian occupation from early in Russia’s invasion in February 2022 until September 2022, when Ukrainian forces conducted a rapid offensive operation that dislodged the Kremlin’s forces from nearly the entire Kharkiv region.

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Madhani reported from Washington. Associated Press journalists Sam McNeil in Brussels, Samya Kullab in Kyiv and Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England, contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine