Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has received a draft plan aimed at ending the war in Ukraine, his office confirmed Thursday.
It said in a statement that he had “officially received a draft plan from the American side, which, according to the American side, could activate diplomacy.” The statement went on to say “it was agreed to work on the points of the plan in such a way as to bring the war to a dignified end.”
A senior White House official confirmed to CBS News on Thursday that President Trump was backing a 28-point plan drafted by envoy Steve Witkoff and an adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war Russia started nearly four years ago with its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but it’s not clear whether this plan is the one that Zelenskyy received.
The plan, according to reports by Axios, the Financial Times and the New York Times, calls for Ukraine to abandon territory, give up some weapons and shrink its army, and while President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday that the war must end, he reiterated that from Kyiv’s perspective, “there can be no reward for waging war.”
Mr. Trump’s endorsement of the plan was first reported by NBC.
Previously, Ukraine has agreed with the U.S. to a freezing of the battle lines where they stand as a starting point for negotiations, while also making clear that it needs security guarantees from Washington and its Western partners.
In an interview with Axios on Monday, Kirill Dmitriev, an adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said he and Trump envoy Steve Witkoff had written a 28-point peace plan during a face-to-face visit last month in Miami.
Just days after the Trump administration imposed sanctions on Russian oil and gas in October, Dmitriev traveled to the U.S. to hold previously scheduled talks with Witkoff in an effort to continue to make progress on a proposal to end the war, as a senior U.S. official described it at the time.
Dmitriev is under U.S. sanctions, which had to be waived for him to travel to Florida to meet with Witkoff.
The White House official who spoke with CBS News on Thursday said Witkoff had been working on a proposal quietly for about a month, and said that he consulted with both the Russians and Ukrainians to take their feedback into account. The extent of those consultations with Ukraine was not clear from Kyiv’s statement Thursday, but White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters the same day that Witkoff and Rubio “met with some of the Ukrainians just in the past week to discuss this very plan.”
Senior Ukrainian official Rustem Umerov was verbally briefed in Miami this week by Witkoff, a source familiar with the conversation told CBS News.
Top European Union official Kaja Kallas, when asked Thursday if Europeans were involved in the process, responded, “Not that I know of.” She also reiterated a point that’s consistently been made by Ukraine and its supporters that “for any plan to work, it needs Ukrainians and Europeans on board.”
Witkoff and Dmitriev have been talking for weeks about a proposal to end the war, gaming out ideas even as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury chief Scott Bessent criticized Russia, saying Moscow was not serious about ending the war.
“Ending a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and realistic ideas,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on X Wednesday. “And achieving a durable peace will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will continue to develop a list of potential ideas for ending this war based on input from both sides of this conflict.”
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told CBS News Wednesday that he didn’t have any announcements to share about a peace plan, but said it was an issue “the president has continued to put at the forefront of our foreign policy goal.”
The recent U.S. sanctions appear to be taking a toll on Russia — a Treasury Department analysis Thursday indicates that the oil sanctions have sent prices there tumbling, choking off a key revenue source that Russia has used to fund its war in Ukraine. The U.S. gas sanctions against Russia go into effect Friday.
Amid the U.S. diplomatic efforts — which include a visit to Kyiv this week by a delegation led by the U.S. Army secretary — Russian missiles have continued to pummel Ukraine.
Rescuers were still searching on Thursday for victims of a devastating Russian strike on an apartment building in the western city of Ternopil that killed at least 26 people, including three children, according to Ukrainian authorities.
Shrieking Russian missiles slammed into the building on Wednesday, burning at least 19 people to death in the apartments.
The strike landed just as the Army secretary Dan Driscoll arrived in the Ukrainian capital, one day after the U.S. greenlit a $100 million package to upgrade Ukraine’s Patriot missile-interceptor systems.
