Ukraine under pressure amid reports Russia and U.S. have devised a secret peace plan(Zelensky and pals FAFO big time)
PUBLISHED THU, NOV 20 20255:14 AM
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KEY POINTS
• Senior U.S. military officials are in Ukraine on Thursday “on a fact finding mission to meet with Ukrainian officials and discuss efforts to end the war” with Russia.
• The U.S. delegation’s arrival in Kyiv comes a day after media reports emerged that Washington and Moscow had held secret talks and devised a 28-point peace plan for Ukraine.
• Ukraine was not believed to have been involved in the peace proposals, which reportedly include major concessions to Moscow.
Ukraine could face some tough choices amid reports thatthe U.S. and Russia have secretly formulated a peace plan to end the war, potentially including significant concessions to Moscow.
Senior U.S. military officials are in Ukraine on Thursday “on a fact finding missionto meet with Ukrainian officials and discuss efforts to end the war” with Russia, a U.S. army spokesman said.
The visit comes a day after media reports suggested Washington and Moscow had held secret talks and devised a new 28-point peace plan for Ukraine, without Kyiv’s involvement.
The 28-point plan — first reported by Axios but followed by other media, including the Financial Times and Reuters, citing unnamed sources —allegedly contains proposals for Ukraine to concede territory in its eastern Donbas region to Russia, abandon certain categories of weaponry and reduce the size of its armed forces by 50%, among other conditions.(Zelensky is sitting in the corner with no say about anything, the war is ending)
One report in The Telegraph newspaper-suggested that Russia could take control of the Donbas region despite Ukraine maintaining legal ownership, with Moscow essentially paying rent for the land. CNBC was unable to confirm the information contained within the media reports.
A senior Ukrainian official told Reuters that Kyiv had received “signals” about a set of U.S. proposals to end the war, but that Kyiv had had no role in preparing the proposals, the unnamed source said.
The Kremlin on Wednesday denied that there had been any “innovations on possible peace proposals” since Russian President Vladimir Putin had met U.S. President Donald Trump in August. When asked specifically about the Axios report, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there was nothing he could share publicly.
Meanwhile, the White House has not explicitly confirmed the existence of the 28-point peace plan, reportedly modeled on the Gaza peace agreement, but U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that new proposals were in the works.
“Ending a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubioposted on X overnight Wednesday.
“Achieving a durable peace will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will continue to develop a list of potential ideas for ending this war based on input from both sides of this conflict,” he said.
Ukraine in a corner?
Ukraine leadership has not publicly commented on the 28-point plan, but peace proposals are expected to form part of Thursday’s talks between President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the U.S. delegation of military officials.
On Wednesday,Zelenskyy commented that “only President Trump and the United States have sufficient power to make this war come to an end.”(in other words, I never wanted to end the war.)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/20/tensions-in-ukraine-amid-reports-that-russia-and-us-have-peace-plan.html