The US and Ukraine drafted a new 19-point peace plan Monday that vastly differs from President Trump’s controversial 28-point proposal, which caused a major uproar over the weekend for heavily favoring Russia, according to reports.
Ukrainian First Deputy Foreign Minister Sergiy Kyslytsya later said both sides felt “positive” over the new plan, which removes limits to the size of Ukraine’s army — and no longer gives blanket amnesty for war crimes committed during the Russian invasion, the Financial Times reported.
While the full details of the new document remain undisclosed, Kyslytsya insisted the latest plan bears little resemblance to the leaked 28-point deal that demanded Ukraine make heavy concessions while asking Russia to barely give up anything.
“Very few things are left from the original version,” Kyslytsya told the outlet of the new plan. “We developed a solid body of convergence, and a few things we can compromise on.”
The original version sought to shrink Ukraine’s armed forces from 900,000 soldiers to only 600,000, with Kyiv also asked to cede its entire Donbas region, which Russia has failed to conquer for more than a decade.
The deal also called on Ukraine to abandon any hope of joining NATO in exchange for vague security guarantees that would do little to stop Russia from launching a third invasion in the future.
After Sunday’s talks in Geneva between Ukrainian officials and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Kyslytsya said cutting Kyiv’s army by a third “was no longer on the table.”
American and Ukrainian officials also agreed to remove a blanket amnesty for the war crimes committed during the conflict, with the new version now set to address “the grievances of those who suffered in the war,” according to the FT.
But the new draft still leaves major issues to be discussed, including Russia’s territorial demands and insistence that Ukraine be barred from joining NATO.
Such details would need to be directly discussed by Trump and Zelensky, Kyslytsya said, with Washington expected to reach out to Moscow in the coming days with the new proposal.
“It’s on the Russians to show if they are genuinely interested in peace or will find a thousand reasons not to engage,” Kyslytsya said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier Monday that the previous 28-point plan was something that could “form the basis for a final peace settlement” with Ukraine.
Putin noted that the terms of that deal were in line with what he and Trump discussed in their summit in Alaska earlier this year, with Russia eager to discuss more at the negotiating table.
It remains to be seen how Moscow will respond to the updated version of the peace plan that includes the new input from Kyiv.
Trump, who insisted that the 28-point peace plan was never a “final offer,” billed the talks in Geneva as positive, teasing that “something good just may be happening” as the administration works to broker peace.
