US Plan ‘Good’ For Russia, Ukraine: White House
Moscow: The White House said Thursday that a U.S. plan backed by President Donald Trump to end Russia’s war in Ukraine is “good” for both sides, dismissing concerns that it reflects many of Moscow’s demands.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had been “quietly” working on the plan for a month.
“It’s ongoing and in flux, but the president supports this plan. This is a good plan for both Russia and Ukraine, and we believe it should be acceptable to both parties,” he said at a briefing.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office said it expects to discuss the issues with Trump in the coming days.
The comments came as Russia claimed to have recaptured the key city of Kupiansk in eastern Ukraine and President Vladimir Putin visited an army command center to speak with officers about the situation at the front.
Here’s what we know about the US plan:
Details of the plan, which reportedly includes 28 articles, were widely covered in the Western media, and a high-level source familiar with the issue shared some of the issues with AFP.
What is known indicates that Ukraine was asked to accept Russia’s basic demands, but appeared to receive little in return.
The source said the plan calls for territorial “recognition of Crimea and other Russian-captured territories.”
Russia’s military occupies about one-fifth of the country; Much of it has been devastated by years of conflict.
The Kremlin claims to have annexed five Ukrainian regions: Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson in 2022, and Crimea in 2014.
Moscow had previously demanded that Ukraine completely withdraw its troops from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in exchange for freezing the front line in the southern Zaporizhia and Kherson regions.
Ukraine has said it will never recognize Russia’s control over its territory, but has acknowledged it may have to take it back through diplomatic channels.
Giving up territory in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that Ukraine still controls could leave Ukraine vulnerable to future attacks by Russia.
“This is a matter of the survival of our country,” Zelensky said recently.
Army and weapons
The plan calls for Ukraine to reduce its army by more than half to 400,000 personnel, the same source told AFP.
Kiev will also have to give up all long-range weapons, the source added.
Other media reports stated that the deployment of Western troops to Ukraine would be completely banned.
This aligns with Russia’s previously publicly stated demands and goes against what Ukraine has set as a red line.
The proposal also reportedly includes vague provisions for Ukraine to negotiate some form of security guarantees with the United States and Europe.
Ukraine wants concrete Western-backed guarantees, ideally in the form of NATO membership or similar defense guarantees and a European peacekeeping force, to prevent a Russian re-invasion.
Whose plan?
The content of the plan fueled allegations that Russia was involved in its preparation.
US media outlet Axios reported that this document was prepared by the Trump administration in secret consultation with Moscow.
“Apparently the Russians suggested this to the Americans and they accepted,” a senior source told AFP.
“An important nuance is that we don’t understand whether this is truly Trump’s story” or the story of “his circle,” the official added.
After the plans were first reported, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said “a lasting peace will require both sides to agree on difficult but necessary concessions.”
Since returning to the White House, Trump’s stance on the Ukraine war has shifted back and forth dramatically.
Over the course of 2025, he moved from calling Zelensky a “dictator” to calling on Kiev to try to take back all territory seized by Russia and hit Moscow with sanctions.
Regenerative diplomacy?
Ukraine, which confirmed it had received the plan on Thursday, said the United States had told it the offer could “reinvigorate diplomacy.”
The statement made by Zelensky’s office did not include details or evaluations of the offer, only stating that an agreement was reached with Washington “to ensure an honorable end to the war.”
The Ukrainian leader met with senior US military officials in Kiev on Thursday.
However, this meeting took place a day after Trump envoy Witkoff missed a meeting with Zelensky in Türkiye; This was a blow to Kiev’s hopes of persuading Washington to pressure Russia to end its invasion.
The Kremlin said it had nothing to say when asked about reports about the plan.
The EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said any peace deal must be subject to approval by both Kiev and Brussels.
“We need to understand that there is an aggressor and a victim in this war. That’s why we haven’t heard of any concessions by Russia,” he added.
