WASHINGTON — The US peace plan to end the war in Ukraine contains almost no concessions from Russia aside from it abandoning its vow to take over the entire country — and American officials say they can’t see why Kyiv would ever accept the proposal.
The plan, devised by President Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, after consultations with both Ukrainian and Russian officials, would see Kyiv surrendering the entirety of its Donbas region.
The handed-over area would include territory that the Kremlin hasn’t even been able to secure for more than a decade, since it made a separate land grab for it in 2014.
The proposed pact also calls for Ukraine to pledge to never join NATO, shrink its armed forces from its current estimated 900,000 to 600,000 personnel — and grant amnesty for all parties involved in wartime actions, eliminating any future legal claims over Russian war crimes.
Some US officials and experts characterized the plan as a no-win for Kyiv.
“The proposal is a bad deal and one that the Trump administration rightfully refused to accept in the past,” Institute for the Study of War Russia program lead George Barros told The Post.
“Deterring future Russian aggression against Ukraine requires a strong Ukrainian military, foreign support to Ukraine — ideally in the form of foreign troops in-country — and a defendable frontline.”
A senior US official told The Post that the main sticking point for Russian officials when asked what concessions they would accept was getting them to simply accept that they can’t take over all of Ukraine.
The conflict is costing Moscow roughly 7,000 Russian lives a day as its economy hemorrhages.
“I mean, look, everyone knows Vladimir Putin wants to take the whole country,’’ the official said of the Russian dictator. “That’s his been his long-sought goal. That is something he’s made quite clear. The president is very aware of that.
“This plan obviously stops [Putin] in his tracks, ends the war — and also forces him to relinquish some territory, which you know is a huge loss for him and for Russia,” the source said.
“And there’s some other little details in there as well that are concessions from their side too, but yeah, sort of the overall point.”
Officials on Thursday told The Post that Ukrainian Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Rustem Umerov gave “positive feedback” on the discussed terms of the proposed plan during his talks with Witkoff in Miami in recent weeks. But the sources stopped short of saying Kyiv signed off on the deal.
“The plan was drawn up immediately following discussions with one of the most senior members of Zelensky’s administration, Umerov,” one of the officials said. “So Umerov agreed to the majority of this plan, and he made several modifications to it, which we included and presented it to President Zelensky.
“I don’t want to say that [Kyiv] full-heartedly … agreed to it and they’re ready to sign off. They agreed to the majority of the plan,” the source said.
The full amnesty for all parties involving potential war was suggested by Umerov, according to a senior White House official.
It had previously stated that “Ukraine will conduct a full audit of all aid received and create a legal mechanism to recover any errors found and punish those who illegally profiteered from the war,” the source said.
But Umerov, in a post on X on Friday, denied the senior US officials’ claims about his tentative sign-off.
“Media reports about alleged ‘approvals’ or ‘removal of points’ have nothing to do with reality,’’ he wrote. “These are examples of unverified information that arose outside the context of the consultations.
“We are thoroughly working through our partners’ proposals within Ukraine’s unchanging principles — sovereignty, the safety of our people, and a just peace,’’ Umerov said.
Numerous attempts by The Post for clarification from Kyiv on its position regarding Umerov’s denial have so far been ignored.
A senior US administration official said it was “fishy” that Umerov would agree to such a plan.
“You will see that point 26 gives amnesty to all parties, meaning both Russia and Ukraine. OK, that was not the idea of the United States; the Ukrainians inserted that language,” the official said.
“The US had [that] ‘Ukraine will conduct a full audit of all aid receipts and create a legal mechanism to recover any errors found and punish those who illegally profited from the war’ — that’s something the American people want to see. That’s also something the Russians do support.”
“The Ukrainians rejected that, and they said, ‘No, we’d rather give amnesty to both sides of the war.’ ”
