A tangible sense of despair hangs over Ukraine as it tries to negotiate with the United States on a flawed peace plan with an extremely tight deadline, while European partners scramble just to find a place at the table.
Ukraine finds itself in an impossible position, faced with a twenty-eight point plan presented in the form of a U.S. ultimatum. Kyiv must somehow continue cooperating with Washington in order not to lose American support, including shared intelligence data—knowing that it remains unable to adopt basic parts of an agreement that would prove unacceptable at home.
Yet, leaders there have no choice but to engage seriously with some of the unpalatable ideas on offer. The very fact of the U.S.-Ukraine talks in Geneva already sends a signal to Russian President Vladimir Putin that the invaded country is willing to engage on several points in a plan that may as well have been co-authored by the invader.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s daily video message to Ukrainians last Friday was reminiscent of one of his first defiant social media posts in February 2022 when he, surrounded by members of his government outside the presidential palace, repeated a simple phrase: “I am here, we are all here.” In his latest rallying call, he referred to the current moment as one of the hardest in his country’s history, but simultaneously tried to reassure citizens that he will not compromise Ukraine’s sovereignty.
The twenty-eight point plan cannot be a basis for peace, especially as the U.S. proposal ranges so widely on different issues.
As originally drafted, the plan is primarily a Russian wish list, which goes so far as to order NATO to formally rule out future membership for Ukraine. This would effectively give the Russian president a veto over the alliance’s actions. Many other points are left vague, in particular the ones addressing security commitments.
The Europeans have been busy reworking the plan against the backdrop of the ongoing Geneva talks, including via a counterproposal drafted by France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. It is unclear to what extent the two processes go hand in hand. European leaders declared it a success that clauses relating to NATO and European security have been removed from the original draft. That avoids—or at least postpones—a standoff within the alliance.
The original wording in the twenty-eight point plan also casts the United States in the role of a mediator between NATO and Russia. Whether this was a carefully chosen phrase or simply sloppy language is impossible to tell, but it clearly signals what everyone has known for a while now: Washington’s commitment and role in NATO is shaky. Speculation about this is already inflicting damage.
By removing references to NATO, however, the critical issue of security guarantees and the EU’s role in providing them also seems to have been parked. Even with a potential U.S. backstop, there was nothing in the original twenty-eight points about how and by whom the demilitarized zone would be secured. Without an agreement on this, any plan is meaningless.
Alarmingly for both Ukraine and Europe, the United States is also trying to turn the end of the war into a business opportunity. Washington is demanding a share of the frozen Russian assets via a complicated investment procedure from which it would reap 50 percent of the profit. Brussels was edging closer to agreement on a complex plan to take possession of those assets and divert the money to Ukraine. The EU needs to act fast before the U.S. administration actively derails this process.
After the Alaska summit between Trump and Putin, and the fears it provoked as the two seemed to set to make a bilateral deal, European leaders hastily got together to make their voices heard in the White House. The sad truth is that after that strong show of diplomacy they got back to their own respective domestic political troubles. How much political willpower currently stands behind the coalition of the willing still remains opaque.
Ukraine’s European allies have hidden behind the statement that as a sovereign state, the country has to decide when and how it wants to end the war. This is easier said than done, as they have not put Kyiv in a position to make such a choice. Some European leaders are still using the same rhetoric now—but it sounds almost cynical when it is so obvious that Ukraine is walking a tightrope that could snap at any moment.
A clear majority of Ukrainians still opposes territorial concessions to Russia. These figures have remained stable over the last year and a half. Any negotiated outcome must be put to a referendum in Ukraine. Agreeing to all of Moscow’s demands will therefore be impossible for people who have paid such a high price in this war. Zelensky cannot ignore what the public wants. His approval rating has remained high in recent years—between 50 and 70 percent—despite the U.S. administration and international media intermittently floating fictitious low numbers. Ukrainian citizens have shown themselves capable of simultaneously rallying behind their president when he comes under international pressure and effectively critiquing his policy mistakes. His summer 2025 attempt to recentralize anti-corruption institutions was stopped by public protests. Currently, he is struggling to clean up a large corruption scandal involving some of his closest associates.
It is evident that durable and secure peace for Ukraine cannot be negotiated in a matter of days, and the Thanksgiving Day ultimatum cannot hold. The key question is how determined the U.S. administration is to arrive at something Trump can call peace. At best, the twenty-eight point plan has recentered the attention of Europeans on Ukraine, but for the moment they are still on the sidelines.
Amidst all the uncertainty, one thing is clear: It will fall upon Ukraine and the EU to manage the fallout of an ill-conceived plan that is not acceptable to ordinary Ukrainians and leaves the door wide open to a renewed attack by Russia.
