The authors of the latest initiative, Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s soverign wealth fund and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoy. (Photo by Vyachelsav Prokofyev via Getty Images).
There were reports yesterday that the US and Russia have agreed on a new peace plan that would soon be presented to Kyiv as a fait accompli although it would be tantamount to a Ukrainian capitulation. The story broke in Axios and was then picked up by the Financial Times and also Reuters and was soon being reported around the media. This was how the Financial Times described the plan:
‘According to people with knowledge of a document about the draft plan, it would require Ukraine to cede the remainder of the eastern Donbas region — including land currently under Kyiv’s control — and cut the size of its armed forces by half. Crucially, it also calls for Ukraine to abandon key categories of weaponry and would include the rollback of US military assistance that has been vital to its defence, potentially leaving the country vulnerable to future Russian aggression. Additionally, no foreign troops would be allowed on Ukrainian soil and Kyiv would no longer receive western long-range weapons that can reach deep inside Russia. The plan would also stipulate that Russian be recognised as an official state language in Ukraine and grant formal status to the local branch of the Russian Orthodox Church — provisions echoing long-standing Kremlin political objectives.’
In short, it is a Kremlin wish list.
If true it would be alarming but also a major departure from the current trend in US policy to be more supportive of Ukraine.
Where did this plan come from? According to the reports, and this much can be believed, it was the result of conversations between Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, with the latter probably having more input than the former. Neither Ukrainians nor Europeans have been involved in the drafting of the plan and it is not all clear that it had much input from many in Moscow or Washington either. After the last Putin-Trump summit the two foreign ministers – Marco Rubio and Sergey Lavrov – were charged with setting the conditions for a summit but they failed to do so because Russia was not offering a single new concession.
Following the appearance of this story there were four interesting developments.