In response to a White House proposal to end the war in Ukraine, which critics say would give the Kremlin much of what it wants, Ukraine’s leadership has drafted a counteroffer, one that contradicts what President Trump has demanded while also leaving room for possible compromises on issues that have long appeared intractable.
According to the plan obtained by The New York Times, there would be no restrictions on the size of the Ukrainian military, “a European security contingent” backed by the US would be deployed on Ukrainian territory to ensure security, and frozen Russian assets would be used to repair damage caused in Ukraine during the war.
Those three measures may be nonstarters for the Kremlin, but portions of the Ukrainian plan indicate a quest for common ground. There is no mention of Ukraine entirely reclaiming all of the area captured by Russia, nor is there an insistence on Ukraine joining NATO, both of which President Volodymyr Zelensky has long stated are not negotiable.
Mr. Trump flew to Rome on Friday to attend Pope Francis’ funeral on Saturday; Mr. Zelensky had planned to do the same, but his spokesman said on Friday that it would depend on the situation in Ukraine, where Russian attacks on the capital, Kyiv, and elsewhere this week have killed and wounded dozens.
After landing in Rome, Mr. Trump said on social media that Russia and Ukraine were “very close to a deal” and urged the two sides to meet immediately to “finish it off.” Earlier in the day, he suggested that he and Mr. Zelensky meet on the margins of the burial. A senior Ukrainian official, commenting on the condition of anonymity, stated that if Mr. Zelensky travels to Rome, he may personally provide Mr. Trump with Ukraine’s counterproposal.
“In the coming days, very significant meetings may take place — meetings that should bring us closer to silence for Ukraine,” Mr. Zelensky said on Friday, sounding unusually upbeat given the tone of prior declarations this week.
A meeting between the two leaders would be the first since Mr. Zelensky’s catastrophic visit to the White House in February, during which Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated the Ukrainian president in a televised clash in the Oval Office.
It would also follow days of squabbles between the White House and Ukraine’s government over the terms of a potential peace treaty with Russia.
Mr. Zelensky rejected a White House plan made public this week to acknowledge Russia’s authority of the Crimean Peninsula, which the Kremlin unlawfully acquired in 2014. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump accused Mr. Zelensky of being “inflammatory” and stated that his unwillingness to comply with White House instructions would “prolong the killing field.”
Despite the animosity, there appears to be some potential for compromise between Washington and Kyiv, albeit both views are far from fixed.
What Moscow will accept is unknown.
Ukraine’s newest plan, for example, includes no demand that Ukraine’s participation in NATO, which Moscow strongly opposes, be assured, despite Mr. Zelensky’s longstanding attitude on this issue. On the contrary, it states: “Ukraine’s accession to NATO depends on consensus among the Alliance’s members.”
In meetings in London and Paris, American officials underlined Mr. Trump’s commitment to oppose Ukraine’s NATO membership, but they assured their Ukrainian colleagues that this position would not bind future American presidents if they took a different view.
“The next US administration could decide to let Ukraine join NATO,” the Americans warned the Ukrainians, according to a source who attended the discussion in Paris last week. U.S. officials stated that they understood Ukraine’s refusal to accept any constraints on joining NATO.
And when it comes to the future structure of Ukraine’s military, the White House has sided with Ukraine rather than Russia. The Kremlin has requested that Ukraine’s military, which is now the largest and most battle-hardened in Europe aside from Russia’s, be subjected to tight size and capability limits. Officials from the Trump administration have assured the Ukrainians that they will not accept such constraints.
And, while Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance signaled willingness to acknowledge Russian sovereignty over Crimea this week, the Americans repeatedly stated to the Ukrainians that they would not demand Kyiv to do so, nor would they expect the Europeans to follow suit.
Still, despite Mr. Trump’s claim that “we’re pretty close” to a deal, there appears to be a long way to go. While all parties agree that before any genuine peace talks can begin, the Russians and Ukrainians must stop shooting at one other, a cease-fire looks to be as difficult as ever.
Hours after President Trump chastised Zelensky for refusing to embrace the White House peace plan this week, Russia conducted a strike on Kyiv, killing at least 12 people and injuring 90 more. That incident elicited a rare criticism of Mr. Putin from Mr. Trump, but comparable attacks, like one that killed 34 in the eastern city of Sumy on Palm Sunday, have received little American response.
Russia has failed to comply with a 30-day cease-fire that the Trump administration wanted and Ukraine agreed to. Even Mr. Putin’s suggested one-day truce to commemorate Easter failed, with both sides blaming each other of continuing to combat.
Then there’s the matter of territory.
Since Mr. Putin’s invasion in February 2022, Russian soldiers have taken a sizable portion of Ukraine’s territory, mostly in the country’s eastern Donbas area, but also a strip of land in the south that connects Russian territory with Crimea. The Kremlin has refused to give up any of that land, which includes major areas of four Ukrainian provinces that Mr. Putin has said are now part of Russia.
Ukrainians think their nation should be “fully restored,” but they don’t explain what that means. Though Mr. Zelensky has always stated that his administration’s ultimate objective is the repatriation of all areas that comprised Ukraine when it declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, including Crimea, Kyiv’s most recent plan appears to be purposefully unclear on this issue.
According to Trump administration officials, Mr. Zelensky’s objective of driving Russian soldiers out of all of these seized territory is impossible; the American approach would accept de facto Russian authority over these occupied areas. Ukraine and its European partners argue that this would amount to rewarding Russian aggression.
While this would be a difficult surrender for the Ukrainians, the Trump administration has thus far declined to concede to all of Russia’s territorial claims. The White House, for example, has refused to comply with a Russian demand that Ukraine withdraw from all four Ukrainian regions, which Mr. Putin has designated part of Russia.
The White House stated that this was “an unreasonable and unachievable demand that the United States would not support.”
