The Trump administration’s stance on the Ukraine war is quite the roller-coaster. Initially, the Russo-Ukraine war would end “within 24 hours.” According to Donald Trump, President Zelenskyy is “a dictator without elections” who is “gambling with World War III” — in February. Following this, “talks are proceeding very well” and “many elements of a final agreement have been agreed to” — in March 2025. In April, “I am not happy with the Russian strikes on Kyiv. Vladimir, STOP!”; discussions with President Putin were “excellent” in May, yet in July Trump was “very disappointed with President Putin”; “it’s a disgrace.” Then there was the August summit in Alaska. And in September, Trump noted that “Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and win all of Ukraine back in its original form”; Russia is a “paper tiger” that “has been fighting aimlessly for three and a half years”; “Ukraine would be able to take back their Country in its original form and, who knows, maybe even go further than that!” And on the 18^th of November, Axios and the Financial Times report on Trump’s forthcoming 28-point Ukraine peace plan. All this is to say, the reader should not feel obliged to hold their breath concerning the finality of the United States’ current position on the matter.

The fact remains, however, that what has been leaked to the press —since, at the time of writing this, no 28-point peace plan has actually been made public (update: meanwhile, Axios has published a version, which shall be addressed in the postscript below)— is premised on the acknowledgement of a stark reality, i.e., that the Russian Federation has effectively won this war, which according to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is a proxy war between the U.S./NATO and Russia, and now largely dictates the terms for peace. Barring a globalisation of the conflict, no magic solution can possibly change the current course of the war — a war that Russia, even if it is winning, cannot end all by itself without a proper peace treaty and a new security balance, since it abhors the frozen conflict scenario. The alternative to a peace treaty comprises the continuation of Russia’s attrition warfare with two potential outcomes: either the globalisation of the conflict with the U.S./NATO directly entering the fight in order to tip the balance —i.e., what many European leaders demonstrably long for, but the U.S. staunchly rejects and has vowed to go to enormous lengths to avoid— or the Russian occupation of further parts of Ukraine, potentially up to and including Odessa, leaving Ukraine as a rump state with no access to the Black Sea, huge manpower losses, and a dysfunctional army and body politic. To put this differently, it is an unpalatable fact of life that, during wartime, the winning side draws the red lines for a negotiated settlement, the alternatives being, for the West, doubling down and directly entering the conflict (i.e., WWIII) and, for Russia, fighting the war to its military conclusion and leaving Ukraine in an utterly abject state. As to whether having state borders in the European continent change as a result of military aggression may be allowed as a precedent (read: whether a war larger still and bloodier still should be ignited in the hope of perhaps, maybe preventing this), one may simply look up the precedent of Kosovo’s establishment.

As things stand, the leaks regarding the Trump peace plan suggest that all Russian red lines have been respected, almost all Russian proposals have been incorporated, and most Russian suggestions have been taken into account; the terms are worse than the ones articulated during the Istanbul 1.0 and Istanbul 2.0 negotiations — which is what one gets when a war on the ground goes awry, a reality many European leaders seem to forget. Logic seems to dictate that failure to reach a settlement now will only exacerbate the peace terms requested in a future round of negotiations, after more territory will have been conquered and after the Ukrainian Armed Forces will have reached, or gone past, the breaking point. The American side seems to be (currently, as this may change…) acutely aware of these realities, while it looks as if it is treating this war as first and foremost a war between the U.S. and Russia that is transpiring on the ground of Ukraine. Given the nature and emergence of these structures, it is not too fanciful to suggest that the corruption scandals unveiled by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) form a sizable part of the U.S. leverage on, and vis-à-vis, President Zelenskyy, aiming at raising his receptiveness to the peace framework under preparation.

Summarising the leaked peace framework, reportedly drafted between American envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian investment fund chief Kirill Dmitriev, this is a 28-point document that effectively requires Kyiv to cede the entirety of Donbas (including areas still under Ukrainian control), recognise Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and its subsequent land grabs in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, elevate Russian to the status of an official state language, grant official recognition to the currently persecuted (and Moscow-aligned prior to the war) Ukrainian Orthodox Church, cap the Ukrainian armed forces at roughly 400,000 personnel, forswear NATO membership in perpetuity, accept a bilateral security guarantee from the United States alone, renounce long-range Western missiles and accept strict limits on future American arms supplies, agree to a phased Russian troop withdrawal only after these concessions are locked in, and acquiesce to the lifting of selected Western sanctions on Russian oil giants such as Rosneft and Lukoil in exchange for promises of broader European security arrangements and renewed US-Russia economic cooperation; in short, a settlement that follows the winning side’s terms, legitimises nearly all of Russia’s territorial gains, sharply curtails Ukraine’s sovereignty and military potential, and sidelines both Kyiv and Europe’s major capitals from the decisive stages of the negotiation. One wonders on the tragic futility of everything that followed the failed 2022 Istanbul negotiations, which could have ended the war in much more favourable conditions and without the immense loss of life that ensued.

It seems to logically follow that the Russian Federation would find this framework agreeable if the published version aligns with the reports, since it incorporates its terms; by proposing it, the U.S. is self-evidently also on board. What about Ukraine, either under President Zelenskyy or under a successor? These positions form the very antipode of Ukraine’s stated red lines. However, for the purposes of the present analysis, let the reader assume for a moment that the U.S.’ leverage vis-à-vis Ukraine is boundless and infinite — after all, it is the U.S. administration itself that called Ukraine a proxy.

Apart from Ukrainians, Americans, and Russians, the fact remains that the war is taking place in the European continent — and the question of the EU leadership’s preparedness for a peace treaty is both essential and thorny, as most EU leaders are indeed terrified that peace might break out; not necessarily due to an actual danger of a realistic Russian threat for wider Europe, but primarily due to the crucial implications of a Russian victory in Ukraine for European balance. Indications abound that most European leaders would prefer war to peace. Throughout November 2025, Europe’s security rhetoric reached a pitch not heard since the Cold War, with several leaders issuing unmistakably bellicose statements. Former NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned that Ukraine faced a perpetual war unless European troops were deployed to Ukraine even before any peace deal. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk described real or imaginary Russian “fifth columns” across the continent as an existential threat that could destroy Europe as a cultural phenomenon. EU foreign-policy chief Kaja Kallas had stated bluntly in the past that Europe’s strategic goal remained the break-up of the Russian Federation itself, and President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen stated this November that “Ukraine will not face this winter alone… We will defeat Russian terror. Putin thinks he can wear us down, but Europe will strengthen Ukraine’s resilience — this winter will shape the war.” In his meeting with the Ukrainian president, Greek PM Mitsotakis repeated the pre-Alaska line on ceasefire first, and peace negotiations second, if at all, while further arming Ukraine. French President Macron insisted that Russian hybrid attacks already amounted to war on European soil and discussed the possibility of troop commitments to Ukraine. German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that Europe may well have “spent the last peaceful summer,” hinting at direct conflict as early as 2028 or sooner. Finally, Chancellor Friedrich Merz —invoking his earlier May pledge that Germany is to build “Europe’s strongest conventional army,” which is an interesting announcement from a German Chancellor, of all people— announced a massive rearmament programme and warned that any American-brokered peace conceding Donbas territory would reward aggression, vowing instead to drive Russia toward total economic collapse before serious negotiations could begin. Taken together, these declarations do not form good omens regarding European receptiveness for a peaceful settlement of the Ukraine war, even if Ukrainians, Americans, and Russians are on board. Climbing down so high a tree is indeed a challenging feat for European leaders, even in the face of the possibility of watershed developments. And President Trump’s reported forthcoming acceleration of negotiations within the 28-point framework (assuming Trump will not engage in yet another U-turn) entails the acute danger of prompting those within the European (and, perhaps, American) security and intelligence apparatus that find a Ukrainian peace thoroughly disagreeable to try to hinder it via a fait accompli that would dictate escalation. 

All in all, indications dictate that the continent is not ready for peace following the apparent outcome of the Ukraine war on the ground, even if the two great powers involved are pledging to broker it together with the present or a future Ukrainian leadership. Failure to deliver peace will guarantee more tragic loss of life in Ukraine, more lost territory, and more trigger-happy anxiety in Europe. Let us hope for what seems presently inconceivable: that Trump delivers and that peace might break out.

Postscript: After writing the above analysis, Axios published Trump’s full 28-point Ukraine-Russia peace plan, described as a “live document” subject to further revisions and negotiation. There are numerous differences from earlier reports, including point 6, i.e., that “the size of the Ukrainian Armed Forces will be limited to 600,000 personnel.” A number of the points effectively form counterproposals to the draft agreements sent by Russia to the USA and to NATO countries in December 2021, establishing that this war and its tragic consequences could have been altogether avoided if the diplomacy taking place in 2025 and 2026 were to take place in 2021 and 2022, as requested back then. Although a number of points would be disagreeable for the Russian Federation —notably, point 14— one wonders whether point 21’s provision that “Kherson and Zaporizhzhia will be frozen along the line of contact” is a non-starter for the winning side of this war. Point 27 conjures up a previously unmentioned “Peace Council headed by President Donald J. Trump,” as if the stability and normativity of the settlement is to be guaranteed only during his tenure. After the experience of Minsk I and Minsk II, the Russian Federation is bound to be extremely cautious on how the binding nature of any agreement is to be upheld in the long term. The most crucial takeaway from the full 28-point plan, however, is that its provisions require the signatures and legal commitment not only of Ukraine, the Russian Federation, and the United States, but also of NATO and the EU: it is currently nearly impossible to imagine that, even if Ukraine and Russia were to agree to the plan, EU and NATO countries would assent, and “on an aggressive timeline” to boot.

It is currently being reported at the time of this writing that the United States expects President Zelenskyy to sign a peace agreement by 27 November, Thanksgiving Day, after which the deal will be presented to the Russian Federation, so that the process is to be completed by early December. This sounds like an absolutely impossible timeline. Meanwhile, Deputy Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the United Nations Khrystyna Hayovyshyn has confirmed that Ukraine has officially received from the American side a draft plan, which she then proceeded to dismantle. Certain European leaders are reportedly preparing their own peace counterproposal, which will undoubtedly be premised on the spurious hypothesis that Ukraine is winning the war, Russia is in tatters, and Vladimir Putin is crying uncle. Indications concerning the above include the statement made by German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul: “we want to ensure that Ukraine can discuss these points from a position of strength.” What this position of strength currently looks like, or could look like in the near future following European initiatives that do not ignite WWIII, is anybody’s guess.