US draws up plan to end conflict

WASHINGTON — A US plan backed by President Donald Trump to end the conflict in Ukraine is "good" for both sides, the White House said on Thursday. Meanwhile, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed readiness for "honest" work with Washington, as European allies stress that they should be on board.

Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had been "quietly" working on the plan for a month, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said.

"It's ongoing and it's in flux, but the president supports this plan. It's a good plan for both Russia and Ukraine, and we believe that it should be acceptable to both sides," she told a briefing.

Zelensky, whose office said he had received a draft of the plan, said after meeting US Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll in Kyiv that Ukraine and Washington 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," Zelensky wrote on Telegram. "We are ready for constructive, honest and prompt work."

He said during his meeting with the delegation that any deal to end the conflict must bring a "dignified peace", with "respect for our independence, our sovereignty".

His office did not comment directly on the content of the 28-point plan, which has not been officially published, but said he had "outlined the fundamental principles that matter to our people".

According to the US-backed plan, seen by Reuters, Kyiv would be required to give up the entire Donbas region and significantly downsize its military.

Security guarantees

The plan says Ukraine would have to limit its army to 600,000 troops and that it would "receive robust security guarantees", without providing further details.

It makes several concessions to Russia including Crimea and that Ukrainian forces will withdraw from part of the Donetsk region that they control.

"This plan was drawn up immediately following discussions with one of the most senior members of President Zelensky's administration, Rustem Umerov, who agreed to the majority of the plan, after making several modifications, and presented it to President Zelensky," a senior US official said.

However, Umerov denied on Friday that he had agreed to the outline of the plan.

"During my visit to the United States, my role was technical — organizing meetings and preparing the dialogue. I provided no assessments or, even more so, approvals of any points," he wrote on Telegram.

The plan seen by Reuters also states that a nonaggression agreement would be concluded between Russia, Ukraine and Europe.

It says that NATO would neither expand further nor station troops in Ukraine and that Russia would be reintegrated into the global economy, with the lifting of sanctions "agreed upon in phases and on a case-by-case basis".

Moscow played down the development. The Kremlin said it had not yet been informed that Ukraine is ready to hold negotiations on the peace plan proposed by Trump, Russia's RIA state news agency reported on Friday, citing the Kremlin.

"Consultations are not currently underway. There are contacts, of course, but there is no process that could be called consultations," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.

He said Russia had nothing to add beyond the position Russian President Vladimir Putin laid out at a summit with Trump in August, adding that any peace deal must address the "root causes of the conflict".

Russia-Ukraine talks have stalled since the Alaska meeting.

The disclosures of the 28-point plan have drawn sharp reactions in Europe, where officials fear being sidelined in the negotiating process and view aspects of the draft as favoring Russia.

The European Union would support any peace plan for Ukraine as long as it brings a lasting and just peace and if it involves Ukraine and the EU, the EU's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Friday.

"As for the peace plan we understand that President Zelensky has been presented with, we have always said for any plan to work it needs to be with Ukraine and the Europeans on board," she said in a speech in Brussels.

Agencies - Xinhua