President Trump’s attempt to create an unstoppable momentum towards peace in Ukraine appears to have run into a dead end after the Kremlin signalled that it was in no mood to make concessions.
Despite days of whirlwind diplomacy involving American, European, Russian and Ukrainian officials, Moscow has shown no sign that it is interested in any kind of deal that does not meet all of its demands.
Ukraine has reportedly removed a key clause from the controversial US peace plan that would have required auditing all international aid.
Originally, according to The Wall Street Journal, the plan called for a full verification of Ukraine’s foreign assistance, aimed at curbing corruption.
The new version replaces that requirement with broad amnesty for all parties for actions taken during the war.
A senior US official told reporters that other conditions will still be carefully negotiated with Kyiv.
It’s definitely a critical moment.
Looks like your friends will be allowed to keep the money they stole.
You must be so happy for them. pic.twitter.com/emmkDovTul— Ed Pilon (@EdPilon4) November 26, 2025
In light of actual progress toward a peace proposal in the Russo-Ukrainian War, warmongers scrambled to hurl their favorite smear at the Trump administration. According to them, anything less than a total crushing victory over Russia is no different than British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement toward Nazi Germany in 1938 and paves the way for further Russian aggression.
For Europe’s leaders, the weekend began with another threat to their relevance, courtesy of President Trump. Would the Americans really force Ukraine to capitulate, embrace President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and undermine NATO — all without even bothering to consult with them?
By Tuesday, the latest diplomatic emergency seemed to have been averted for the moment, if hardly resolved, thanks to a how-to-handle-Trump playbook that European leaders have honed over a year of similar episodes.
The Europeans — led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain, President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany — resisted the urge to lash out at Mr. Trump’s 28-point peace plan despite its pro-Russia tilt. Instead, they embraced the plan publicly to keep the president happy, even as they insisted that it was only a starting point for discussions.
They want to meddle to seem important. No thanks.
The Trump administration’s Army secretary sat down Tuesday with Russian officials in Abu Dhabi to present a slimmed-down plan to end Moscow’s 33-month-old invasion of Ukraine.
Dan Driscoll arrived in the Middle East after representatives from Washington and Kyiv hammered out a revised framework to end Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.
“The Ukrainians have agreed to the peace deal,” a US official said. “There are some minor details to be sorted out but they have agreed to a peace deal.”
Updated peace plan could be a deal Ukraine will take – eventually
Donald Trump wants a peace deal in Ukraine very badly.
Kyiv wants peace even more, just not at any cost.
That’s why when the US began pushing it to agree to a deal by Thanksgiving on what looked close to surrender terms, Ukraine pushed back.
It scrambled senior officials to talks in Geneva and all of Sunday we saw delegates from the US and Ukraine shuttling back and forth between the two main venues in black limousines with darkened windows.
Things are very bad in Ukraine right now. The former spokeswoman for Ukraine’s clearly overmatched comedian leader says things could get a lot worse if Ukraine’s government walks away from peace this time.
“Every subsequent deal for Ukraine will only be worse — because we are losing. We are losing people, territory, and the economy,” Iuliia Mendel, press secretary for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from 2019 to 2021, wrote in an X post this weekend as negotiators went back and forth in marathon peace talks.
The bureaucrats had no strategy
The 28-point plan the White House negotiated with the Kremlin is not a done deal. It’s not even close. It is a blueprint, no more, no less. In any case, Trump is an unpredictable player — he could back out at any moment. But this time, I don’t think he will.
The plan, first circulated on a Telegram channel, is clearly not a great one for Ukraine. But, equally, it isn’t a “capitulation” and those who have described it as such don’t really want a deal. Ukraine will be able to improve on it. But, admittedly, not by much. “You don’t have the cards,” Trump once told Zelensky. Unfortunately, after the recent corruption scandal, his hand is weaker than ever.
A “tremendous amount of progress” has been achieved in talks to finalise a US-proposed peace plan to end the Russia-Ukraine war, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said.
But “there’s still some work to be done”, Rubio said after meeting Ukrainian and European negotiators in Geneva, Switzerland.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said there were “signals that President [Donald] Trump’s team is hearing us”.
Donald Trump said Ukraine has “zero gratitude” for his efforts to end the war after splits emerged over his latest peace plan.
The US president also took aim at Europe for continuing to buy Russian oil in a post on Truth Social.
“I inherited a war that should have never happened, a war that is a loser for everyone, especially the millions of people that have so needlessly died,” Mr Trump said.
Donald Trump’s latest plan for ending the war in Ukraine would see territory ceded to Russia, Russia readmitted to the G8 and Ukraine banned from joining Nato, according to drafts of the proposal seen by Axios, AFP and the Associated Press.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he expected to discuss the plan with Trump “in coming days,” adding any deal must bring a “dignified peace” with “respect for our independence, our sovereignty.”
JOHANNESBURG – The world’s most influential nations gathered in South Africa to work around Washington’s disruptive foreign policy Saturday, reaching consensus on issues like climate change and gender equality while pushing back on a Ukraine deal that western allies deemed insufficient.
For Canada, disruptive geopolitics led to a technology pact with India, a recent foe, along with a cut to Ottawa’s funding for global health and talks with countries grappling with American and Chinese trade coercion.
“It is a great day for multilateralism,” Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand told reporters in Johannesburg.
Canada is that kid who is tolerated because he gives money as a Tag Along Tax.
Ukraine faces a triple threat amid growing casualties, a corruption scandal and a peace plan that amounts to capitulation
Gennady Druzhenko reckons that of the 1,000-odd fellow military recruits in his training camp, he is the only one who is there willingly.
The vast majority are conscripts, many of them old or unhealthy, press-ganged off the streets to plug the growing gaps in Ukraine’s front lines.
His comrades’ morale could not get much worse, but in the wake of the corruption scandal last week engulfing Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, a new low has been reached.
“Some of these guys are nearly 60 and it’s a tragedy that they’re being mobilised anyway,” Mr Druzhenko told The Telegraph.
Live – Ukraine and US to hold peace talks in Switzerland
Ukraine and the United States will hold peace talks in Switzerland on how to end the war, a negotiator for Kyiv has said.
Donald Trump gave Volodymyr Zelensky until Thursday to approve his 28-point peace plan, which would see Ukraine surrender key territory, cut the size of its army and destroy any hope of joining Nato.
Soon it will be four years. An unspeakable slaughter with horrifying numbers—300,000 Russian soldiers killed and perhaps 100,000 Ukrainians. Cities pulverized. The time of the bloodlands returned, with Vladimir Putin taking up the double legacy of Stalin and Hitler.
And all this for what? A village taken here, one retaken there. A motorized unit arriving to plant a flag on a church steeple and take a photo—then bolting immediately. Months of monstrous fighting in Bakhmut and Chasiv Yar (two battles I covered) and in Andriivka to capture tiny towns of which nothing remains but piles of rubble.
From the comments …
Doesn’t BHL understand that allowing Ukraine to hold on but not to win is precisely the West’s objective in the war?
And it is no scandal at all, but rather simple self-defense — letting the Ukrainians do our fighting for us. Eventually, Russia was going to attack the West, anyway. Now it will hesitate to do so, given its depleted military, political, economic and diplomatic standing.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says he is ready to work with the US on “their vision” for ending the war with Russia.
Under the widely leaked plan, Kyiv would cede significant areas of the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine that it still controls, cut the size of its army, and pledge not to join Nato – proposals it has previously ruled out.
The White House has pushed back on claims that Ukraine was not involved in the drafting of the plan, which emerged following meetings between US special envoy Steve Witkoff and and Russian counterpart Kirill Dmitriev.
Hmmmm … Live – US tells Ukraine: Sign deal by Thursday or have weapons cut off
In July this year a 17-year-old travelled 500 miles from his home in eastern Ukraine to collect a bomb and a phone hidden in a park in the western city of Rivne.
He says he was promised $2,000 (£1,520) to plant the bomb in a van used by Ukraine’s military conscription service.
“When I was connecting the wires, I thought it could explode then. I thought I might die,” he told the BBC.
Vlad is one of hundreds of children and older teenagers who the Ukrainian government alleges have been recruited online by Russia, and offered payment to carry out sabotage and other attacks against their own country. His name has been changed to protect his anonymity.
