Russian President Vladimir Putin has donned a military uniform and visited military command posts on the front lines of the Ukraine war twice in the last month. Both televised episodes were meant to convey a simple message to Washington and Kyiv: that regardless of talk about shortages of Russian soldiers and small gains at great cost, Moscow is satisfied with the state of affairs on the front. Russian troops are advancing while Ukrainian troops are retreating, and that should form the basis for any negotiated end to the war.
On November 21, the full text of a twenty-eight-point draft peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine surfaced. At a meeting of the Russian Security Council that same day, Putin said that he had “received this text through the existing communication channels with the U.S. administration”—rather than learning about it from newspapers and tweets, like the startled Europeans.
The draft plan was quickly denounced by many as pro-Russian—and indeed, the similarities with Russia’s long-standing demands were plain for all to see. The plan includes limitations on the size of Ukraine’s army and a ban on Ukraine joining NATO. Accordingly, Putin’s reaction to it was eagerly anticipated: would he be willing to negotiate over it? Putin did acknowledge the plan as his brainchild—but only partially.
In his comments, which had very obviously been prepared in advance, though they were made in response to a seemingly impromptu question, Putin said Russia had received U.S. proposals before the Alaska meeting, along with a request to “show flexibility.” He added that “despite certain complicated issues and difficulties, we nevertheless agree with those proposals and are ready to show the flexibility they asked for.”
Russia most likely understands flexibility as being prepared to relinquish its claims to territory in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions to which it lays claim but has not yet occupied, and to withdraw troops from Ukrainian regions to which Russia does not yet lay claim. The fact that the plan does not require the immediate lifting of sanctions or Zelensky’s resignation as a condition for signing the agreement also no doubt demonstrates Russia’s flexibility in the Kremlin’s mind.
Putin added that following the Alaska meeting, Russia informed its partners in the Global South and that “every single one of them supported these possible agreements.”
According to Putin, Washington took a break from the proceedings following the Alaska summit (he blamed this on Ukraine’s rejection of the plan, and did not mention that the break was almost certainly the result of a failed Russian diplomatic foray). It was during this hiatus that “a new version emerged, essentially an updated plan consisting of twenty-eight points.” In other words, in Putin’s telling, the latest draft is neither Russian nor even a post-Alaska U.S.-Russian version, but has been amended—presumably by the Americans following discussions with the Europeans and Ukrainians.
The crucial implication here is that the published draft already takes into account the other side’s wishes, which clearly sets the document apart from Moscow’s wishes. In other words, no one should think that Trump is simply imposing a Russian capitulation plan on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. After all, between the Alaska summit and the publication of the twenty-eight-point draft, Trump and members of his team had plenty of meetings with representatives of Ukraine and the EU.
The document’s publication was presented as unplanned. On November 18, the U.S. news website Axios mentioned the existence of a plan being secretly developed in Washington and Moscow. Two days later, Oleksiy Honcharenko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament, published the Ukrainian version of the plan, and Axios published the English version.
On November 21, Zelensky recorded a solemn address to the Ukrainian people, in which he said that “Ukraine may soon face an extremely difficult choice. Either the loss of dignity or the risk of losing a key partner. Either twenty-eight complicated points or the hardest winter yet—and the risks that follow.” European leaders expressed their support for Zelensky, while Trump demanded that the Ukrainian leader sign the plan by Thanksgiving on November 27.
After Western leaders and even many Republican senators criticized the plan as too pro-Russian, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio attempted to distance himself from it, allegedly calling it a wish list from Moscow. Rubio was then forced to clarify that the plan “is based on input from the Russian side. But it is also based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.” That raised suspicions among Trump’s critics that not only had the project been authored in Russia, but that its apparent leaking was a Kremlin special operation, launched on the assumption that Zelensky would be weakened by domestic problems, prompting Trump to break him once and for all after its publication.
Perhaps the transformation of the draft agreement into an ultimatum was indeed timed to coincide with the biggest corruption scandal in Ukraine since the war. However, the ultimatum-like quality of Trump’s statements has lost its potency over the past year.
Trump has gone back on his word so often that it’s no longer easy to trust that it’s his final, definitive position. But there’s also fear on the part of Ukraine and its European allies of making a mistake and being left without U.S. support. Over the weekend, the U.S. and Ukrainian delegations said that they had held “constructive” and ‘highly productive” consultations in Switzerland, refining and updating the plan.
Meanwhile, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen issued a statement on the peace discussions on November 23. “First, borders cannot be changed by force,” she said. “Second, as a sovereign nation there cannot be limitation on Ukraine’s armed forces that would leave the country vulnerable to future attack and thereby also undermining European security. Third, the centrality of the European Union in securing peace for Ukraine must be fully reflected.” In other words, since the draft treaty contains provisions that concern the European Union and NATO, these should be discussed with them—and not Putin.
It’s unlikely that the EU means it still expects to see a return to Ukraine’s borders as established upon its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Rather, it is refusing to translate the factual recognition of seized territory into a legal and internationally binding framework. A compromise, therefore, would be a new draft peace agreement that takes these red lines into account and somewhat shifts the balance of the text from Moscow’s demands to the wishes of Ukraine and the United States’ European allies.
Putin may have welcomed Trump’s efforts and approved the draft in principle. However, he also made it clear that this was not a Russian plan, nor even the plan agreed upon in Alaska, but the Alaska plan that had been amended without Russia’s participation. The implication is that not only Ukraine, but Russia too has the right to consider the draft plan insufficient and demand more.
Moreover, the very fact that the plan has been published for everyone to read now means for the Kremlin that it must not be changed to Russia’s disadvantage: proud Russia cannot be seen to lose face.
Putin said at the Security Council meeting that “overall, this development suits us, as it leads to achieving the goals of the special military operation by force.” He cited the example of the city of Kupyansk, which was recently captured by Russian troops. If Kyiv refuses to engage in dialogue, he said, “what happened in Kupyansk will inevitably occur in other key areas of the front. Perhaps not as quickly as we would prefer, but inevitably.” In other words, it doesn’t matter to Russia how slowly progress is made; what’s important is that things are moving in the right direction.
Putin is communicating that he’s offering Ukraine and the West a choice: not between different versions of peace, but between achieving the goals of the war through military force alone, or by complementing that military force with negotiations, which would result in fewer deaths.
