Expectations, if there were any, are disappointed. Negotiations on a peace plan for Ukraine are dragging on and seem to have returned to where they were, after the euphoria unleashed by the Geneva round between the United States and Ukraine. While Russia drags its feet, Donald Trump closes the doors – at least for the moment – to Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelenskyj and Europe, fearful of a bad deal for its ally, demands relevance. The new attempts to conclude a deal face the same stubborn reality: Kiev and Moscow’s red lines on territory, security and Ukraine’s entry into NATO are absolutely opposite.
A new factor has also arrived to shake up the situation status quo: The revelation of the speech in which US envoy Steve Witkoff advised the Russian side on how best to convince Trump of his positions on the war, with advice that knowingly sabotaged Zelensky’s efforts.
The original peace plan appears to have begun to take shape in a conversation between Witkoff and Yuri Ushakov, President Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy adviser, on October 14, which was leaked to Bloomberg. Initially the plan, which came to light last week, was completely biased towards the Russian positions. To such an extent that several media outlets, and even Republican lawmakers, have underlined that the initial authorship comes from Moscow. Specifically, by another Russian advisor, Kiril Dmítriev, Putin’s trusted man, who met the American representative in Miami at the end of October. The leak to Bloomberg also includes a conversation between Dmitriev and Ushakov in which they discuss which demands to include in the peace negotiations.
In the conversation, not denied by any of the parties involved, Witkoff emphasizes that, to achieve peace, Ukraine will have to give up the entire Donetsk province, where it still controls part of the territory despite Russian attempts to occupy it entirely.
The next steps in the negotiations appear to be postponed until next week, when, according to Trump, Witkoff will travel to Moscow to meet Putin, probably together with his partner in the delicate negotiations, Jared Kushner, the yernie presidential. At the same time, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, the new protagonist of the talks, will meet with Ukrainian representatives. The United States paralyzes its activities for the rest of the week to commemorate Thanksgiving Day, its most solemn holiday. The president will spend it at his private residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.
But Witkoff’s visit is also unsafe, according to the Kremlin. Ushakov, the White House envoy’s interlocutor in the leaked speech, said that there is only “a preliminary agreement” on the meeting, while spokesman Dimitri Peskov stressed that nothing has yet been finalized about this hypothetical visit. It’s the same tone the Kremlin used when it lowered expectations about Trump and Putin’s failed meeting in Budapest.
Moscow urges caution in the face of the Trump government’s new attempt to immediately end the war. Putin remained silent during his attendance at the summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Russia’s alternative to NATO, in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. For his part, when asked whether he expects peace soon, Peskov implied that negotiations are not progressing as quickly as the White House would like. “For now, wait. It’s too early to talk about it,” said the Russian leader’s communications chief.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was clearer in confirming Moscow’s lack of interest in seeking a negotiated solution to the conflict. “There can be no question of making concessions or giving up our approaches on key aspects of the challenges we face, including the special military operation (the invasion of Ukraine, in Kremlin terminology),” the diplomat said before resolving any speculation: “The Russian side is not willing to publicly discuss various proposals for a peace settlement in Ukraine.”
Moscow takes its time. Two delegations from Russia and Ukraine met this Tuesday in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, to discuss technical aspects of the war, such as the exchange of prisoners. Despite the latest news, they have not changed their agenda.
“The peace plan was not discussed in Abu Dhabi,” Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser, said on Wednesday. According to the diplomat, the Kremlin has received the latest draft agreed by Washington with Kiev. For the Russian government, some points “can be considered positive”, but “many others require special debate among experts”.
No to the meeting with Zelenskyj
In parallel with Russian parsimony, Trump has also accepted a slower pace in negotiations. He categorically ruled out, at least for the moment, the meeting with Zelenskyj which Kiev was eager to close, to the point of proposing a trip at the height of Thanksgiving so that the negotiations would not lose momentum. This is a serious step backwards for the Ukrainians, who tried to close the pending points of the peace agreement directly with the American one. Republicans had set Thursday as the deadline for Ukraine to say yes to the peace plan presented by the United States. Now he has clarified that the ultimatum has disappeared: “I don’t have a deadline. Do you know when the one I have will be respected? When everything is over”, he declared on Tuesday from Air Force One.
In these comments, Trump provided some insights into what is being proposed in the peace process. According to the president, at this point in the war Russia seems to have the advantage, while Ukraine would benefit from reaching an agreement as soon as possible to avoid further deaths among its people. Part of the territory that Moscow claims without even having managed to occupy, in the eastern province of Donetsk, “Russia will probably hold” in the next two months, the republican believes. He also indicated that negotiations are taking place with European allies on possible security guarantees for the Ukrainians.
Moscow clings as a starting point to the concessions made in the White House’s original 28-point plan. A Kremlin source reported this to the independent Russian newspaper The Insider He argues that the initial US proposal was largely a reworking of another document drafted by Dmitriev when Trump arrived in the White House. Second The InsiderMoscow’s project proposed that the White House “exchange China for the United States” in the face of Beijing’s growing influence on the Russian economy. This last proposal does not figure, at least publicly, in the North American plan.
According to American media, some Russian demands were excluded from the final proposal agreed between Washington and Kiev, including the limitation of the Ukrainian armed forces, a general amnesty and the handing over of entire regions of Luhansk and Donetsk to Russia, including the territory it failed to conquer in almost four years of war.
A political earthquake
Putin’s spokesperson has put the blame on others that this is another failed peace attempt after the news leak of the conversations between Witkoff and Ushakov in which the American special envoy explained Trump’s weaknesses to the Russian to get him on his side.
“There are many people in various countries, including the United States, who are trying to derail progress towards peace,” Peskov said.
The conversations published by Bloomberg have opened internal disputes not only in the United States, but also in Russia. Dmitriev, a person completely unrelated to the Russian Foreign Ministry, was imposed by Putin within the delegations that have negotiated in recent months with the United States and Ukraine.
The director of the Russian Direct Investment Fund is from “family”: his wife is friends with the president’s daughter, who over the past two years has also placed other “relatives” in several other ministries, including Defense, to closely monitor their senior officials.
Dmitriev denied the existence of the conversations leaked by Bloomberg via the social network X. However, Ushakov exposed him on Wednesday by confirming these calls.
“This is very unusual!” the diplomat told the Russian newspaper. Kommersant. “Usually contacts happen through secure communications and leaks are practically non-existent unless one of the parties makes them. But there are some WhatsApp conversations that someone may have spied on,” Ushakov explained, adding that it is difficult for him to conceive “that this leak comes from any of the participants in the conversation.”
Putin’s advisor hinted at this Kommersant that Witkoff’s days might be numbered. “Remember the Michael Flynn incident? It could be the same thing,” Ushakov said, recalling that during Trump’s first term, with the investigation into his ties to the Kremlin as the backdrop, the former head of Homeland Security was forced to resign after a secret revelation was leaked on the phone with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kislyak.
