Zürcher Nachrichten - Ukraine 'ready' to work with US on plan to end war

Neither side has divulged details of the proposal, which, according to details provided to AFP by a source familiar with the matter, appeared to echo many of Moscow's maximalist demands for ending the war.

Zelensky's office said he expected to discuss the points with Trump in the coming days.

Here's what we know about the plan:

- Territory -

Details of the plan, reported to contain 28 points, have been reported widely in Western media, and a senior source familiar with the matter also shared some aspects with AFP.

What is known suggests Ukraine is being asked to concede to Russia's key demands, while appearing to get very little in return.

On territory, the plan calls for the "recognition of Crimea and other regions that the Russians have taken", the source said.

Russia's army occupies around a fifth of the country -- much of it ravaged by years of fighting.

The Kremlin claims to have annexed five Ukrainian regions -- Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in 2022 and Crimea in 2014.

Moscow has previously demanded that Ukraine completely withdraw its troops from the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, in exchange for freezing the front line in the southern Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.

Ukraine has said it will never recognise Russian control over its land, but has conceded it might be forced to get it back through diplomatic means.

Ceding territory in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions that Ukraine still controls could leave Ukraine vulnerable to future attacks by Russia.

"It is a matter of our country's survival," Zelensky said recently.

- Army and weapons -

The plan calls for Ukraine to reduce its army to 400,000 personnel, cutting its military by more than half, the same source told AFP.

Kyiv would also be required to give up all long-range weapons, the source added.

Other media reports said there would be a complete ban on Western troops being deployed to Ukraine.

That fits with previous Russian demands that have been made public and goes against what Ukraine has cast as red lines.

The proposal also reportedly includes vague provisions for Ukraine to negotiate some kind of security guarantees with the United States and Europe.

Ukraine wants concrete Western-backed assurances, ideally in the form of NATO membership or Article-5 style defence guarantee and a European peacekeeping force, to prevent Russia from invading again.

- Whose plan? -

The contents of the plan have fuelled suggestions that Russia was involved in drafting it.

US media outlet Axios reported it had been drawn up by the Trump administration in secret consultation with Moscow.

"It seems that the Russians proposed this to the Americans, they accepted it," the senior source told AFP.

"An important nuance is that we don't understand whether this is really Trump's story" or "his entourage's", the official added.

After the plans were first reported, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said "a durable peace will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions".

In a statement on social media, he said Washington would "continue to develop a list of potential ideas for ending this war based on input from both sides of this conflict".

Since returning to the White House, US President Donald Trump's position on the Ukraine war has shifted dramatically back and forth.

Over 2025, he has gone from calling Zelensky a "dictator" to urging Kyiv to try to reclaim all the land captured by Russia and hitting Moscow with sanctions.

- Invigorating diplomacy? -

Confirming on Thursday that it had received the plan, Ukraine said the United States had told it the proposal "could invigorate diplomacy".

The statement from Zelensky's office did not contain details or an assessment of the proposal, saying only that it had agreed with Washington "to ensure a dignified end to the war".

The Kremlin said it had nothing to say when asked about the reports.

The EU's top diplomat Kaja Kallas said any peace settlement must have the agreement of both Kyiv and Brussels.

"We have to understand that in this war, there is one aggressor and one victim. So we haven't heard of any concessions on the Russian side," she added.

G.Kuhn--NZN