Zelenskyy Signals Openness to US-Led Peace Efforts in Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he is ready to work on a United-States-backed plan to end the Russia-Ukraine war and expects to discuss it with US President Donald Trump in the coming days.

European countries are pushing back against the plan, which sources said would require Ukraine to give up more land and partially disarm, conditions long seen by Ukraine’s allies as tantamount to capitulation.

But Zelenskyy, who held talks with a top US military official in Kyiv on Thursday, said Ukraine and the US would work together on elements of it.

“Our teams — Ukraine and the USA — will work on the points of the plan to end the war,” Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram.

“We are prepared for constructive, honest, and prompt negotiations,” said a U.S. official, signaling a readiness for progress.

Zelenskyy’s office said it had received a draft of the unpublished 28-point plan but did not comment directly on its contents, only saying the president had “outlined the fundamental principles that matter to our people”.

“In the coming days, the President of Ukraine expects to discuss with President Trump the existing diplomatic opportunities and the key points required to achieve peace,” it said.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told a news briefing that US secretary of state Marco Rubio and US special envoy Steve Witkoff had been quietly working on the plan for about a month and Trump supports the plan.

“It’s a good plan for both Russia and Ukraine, and we believe that it should be acceptable to both sides,” she said.

According to the official, the United States is engaging equally with both Ukrainian and Russian counterparts to develop the discussion framework.

Zelenskyy’s office said US Army secretary Daniel Driscoll had presented him with the plan only on Thursday, and several sources told Reuters and other media outlets that the plan was the fruit of backchannel conversations between Witkoff and Kirill Dmitriev, the special envoy of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In a message on X on Wednesday, Rubio said the US “will continue to develop a list of potential ideas for ending this war based on input from both sides of this conflict” and that peace will require concessions from both Ukraine and Russia.

Zelenskyy agreed to move quickly towards agreement and signing of a plan, US army chief of public affairs Colonel Dave Butler said.

The United States, he said, wanted to ensure that this is “a good plan for the Ukrainian people”.

The US ambassador to Kyiv, Julie Davis, said the talks were “remarkably constructive”. All participants “share President Trump’s vision to end this war” and wanted to move forward quickly, she said.

The acceleration in US diplomacy comes at an awkward time for Kyiv, with its troops on the back foot on the battlefield and Zelenskyy’s government undermined by a corruption scandal. Parliament fired two cabinet ministers on Wednesday.

Moscow played down any new US initiative.

“Consultations are not currently under way. There are contacts, of course, but there is no process that could be called consultations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

He said Russia had nothing to add beyond the position Putin laid out at a summit with Trump in August, adding that any peace deal must address the “root causes of the conflict”, a phrase Russia has long used to refer to its demands.

European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels did not comment in detail about the US plan, but indicated they would not accept demands for Kyiv to make punishing concessions.

“Ukrainians want peace — a just peace that respects everyone’s sovereignty, a durable peace that can’t be called into question by future aggression,” said French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot. “But peace cannot be a capitulation.”

Ukrainian military denies Russian Kupiansk claims

With another winter approaching in the nearly four-year-old war, Russian troops occupy almost one-fifth of Ukraine and are slowly advancing while bombarding Ukrainian energy supplies and cities as the cold winter sets in.

The Kremlin said Putin had visited the command post of the Russian forces’ “West” grouping on Thursday, where he met the chief of Russia’s general staff, Valery Gerasimov, and other top military brass.

Gerasimov told Putin Russian forces had taken control of the Ukrainian city of Kupiansk, a city Moscow sees as an important target in its westward push through central and eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine’s military denied Russian claims it controls Kupiansk in northeastern Ukraine or 70 per cent of the ruined railway hub of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine.

Reuters could not independently verify either statement, although video released by Russia’s defence ministry on Thursday showed its troops moving freely through the southern part of Pokrovsk, patrolling deserted streets lined with charred apartment blocks.