What we know about leaked US draft plan to end Russia’s Ukraine war

The draft US-Russia peace plan has been widely leaked and we now know that it proposes to hand over those areas of Ukraine’s industrial eastern Donbas region still under Ukrainian control to the de facto control of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Latest versions of the text also call for Ukraine to cut the size of its armed forces to 600,000 people.

But what else is known about the text and who stands to benefit from it most?

There are 28 key points and there are several on the face of it that could be acceptable to Ukraine. Others come across as vague and imprecise.

Ukraine’s sovereignty would be “confirmed” and there would be a “total and complete comprehensive non-aggression agreement between Russia, Ukraine and Europe”, with robust or reliable “security guarantees” for Kyiv and a demand for snap elections in 100 days.

If Russia were to invade Ukraine a “robust co-ordinated military response” is proposed along with a restoration of sanctions and a scrapping of the deal.

Although elections are impossible in Ukraine as there is martial law in place, they could theoretically be held if a peace deal is signed.

But on security guarantees, there is no detail on who would provide them and how robust they might be. This falls well short of a Nato-style Article Five commitment to treat an attack on Ukraine as an attack on all. Kyiv would want more than a vague promise if it were to sign up.

Among the most contentious proposals are Ukraine handing over its own unoccupied territory and cutting the size of its armed forces.

“Ukrainian forces will withdraw from the part of Donetsk Oblast that they currently control, and this withdrawal zone will be considered a neutral demilitarized buffer zone, internationally recognized as territory belonging to the Russian Federation. Russian forces will not enter this demilitarised zone.”

Ceding territory where at least a quarter of a million Ukrainians live – the Donetsk “fortress belt” cities of Slovyansk, Kramatorsk and Druzhkivka – will not be acceptable to most Ukrainians. Russia has spent well over a year trying to capture the town of Pokrovsk – Ukraine is unlikely to hand over such important strategic hubs without a fight.

“The size of the Ukrainian Armed Forces will be limited to 600,000 personnel.”

Ukraine’s military was estimated last January at 880,000 active personnel, up from 250,000 at the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022.

While 600,000 might seem a potentially acceptable number in peacetime, that kind of limitation would infringe on Ukrainian sovereignty. It might also be too big a number for Russia to accept.

“Our red lines are clear and unwavering,” Ukrainian representative Khrystyna Hayovyshyn told the UN security Council: “There will never be any recognition formal or otherwise of Ukrainian territory temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation as Russian. Ukraine will not accept any limits on its rights to self defence or on the size or capabilities of our armed forces.”

The draft also proposes that “Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk will be recognized as de facto Russian, including by the United States”.

In other words Ukraine and other countries would not need to recognise Russian control by law. That could enable Kyiv to accept such phrasing, as it would not impinge on Ukraine’s constitution that says its borders are ” indivisible and inviolable”.

Elsewhere, in the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzia, the front lines would be frozen and Russia would relinquish areas it has occupied in other areas.

The draft proposes significant commitments on Ukraine’s strategic future:

“Ukraine agrees to enshrine in its constitution that it will not join Nato and Nato agrees to include in its statutes a provision that Ukraine will not be admitted in the future.”

“Ukraine is eligible for EU membership and will get short-term preferred market access to the European market while this issue is being evaluated.”

There is little chance of Ukraine joining Nato any time soon and Russia has in recent months softened its stance on Ukraine’s candidacy for EU membership. The document appears to offer Kyiv access to EU markets while ignoring the views of 27 European countries.

Joining both the EU and Nato are part of Ukraine’s constitution and another of Khrystyna Hayovyshyn’s red lines at the UN on Thursday was: “Nor will we tolerate any infringement on our sovereignty including our sovereign right to choose the alliances we want to join.”

Other draft proposals are that Nato agrees not to station troops in Ukraine and that European fighter jets will be stationed in Poland. Kyiv would also have to commit to being a “non-nuclear state”.

That appears to reject the West’s Coalition of the Willing’s plans led by the UK and France to help police any future deal.

Several points refer to Russia being brought back from isolation with “Russia to be re-integrated into the global economy” and invited back into the G8 group of powers.

That seems a long way off for now, with Putin under an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court. Russia was thrown out of the G7 after it seized and then annexed Crimea in 2014 and Trump tried to bring Putin back into the fold six years later.

If the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan were reluctant before the full-scale invasion, there’s even less chance of that happening now.

The draft proposes that $100bn of frozen Russian assets should be invested “in US-led efforts to rebuild and invest in Ukraine”, with the US receiving 50% of the profits and Europe adding $100bn in investment for reconstruction.

This is reminiscent of the US minerals deal with Ukraine earlier this year, extracting an American price for involvement, and it also leaves the European Union with nothing but hefty bills.

The sums it mentions may not be sufficient, either: earlier this year the total cost of reconstruction in Ukraine was put at $524bn (€506bn).

Some €200bn in Russia frozen assets are largely held by Euroclear in Belgium, and the European Union is currently working on a plan to use the money to fund Kyiv financially and militarily.

The rest of those frozen assets would go to a “US-Russian investment vehicle”, under the draft, so Russia would see some of its money come back, but again there would be a financial benefit for the US.

Several commentators have pointed out that the plan does not require weapons limitations on Ukraine’s military or its arms industry, even though there is a provision saying: If Ukraine fires a missile at Moscow or St. Petersburg then the security guarantee will be considered null and void.

But it does not place an restriction on the long-range weapons Ukraine has been developing – such as its Flamingo and Long Neptune missiles.

We know the US is keen to press ahead fast under an “aggressive timeline” with this draft, with reports suggesting Ukraine has until Thanksgiving late next week to agree to it.

Equally US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was involved in drafting it, described it as “a list of potential ideas for ending this war”, and German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul has made clear he does not see the 28 points as a definitive plan, having spoken to the other key US official involved, Trump envoy Steve Witkoff.

In some respects the draft document seems like work in progress, with some details that were leaked to US websites on Thursday no longer apparent.

The European Union said on Friday morning it had not officially seen the plan yet, and the Russian foreign ministry said the same.

Russian special envoy Kirill Dmitriev is known to have spent as long as three days with Witkoff discussing this plan, raising suggestions of a stitched-up deal to suit Moscow. But Russia’s response has so far been cautious and it says it has not even seen the plan.

The handover of Ukrainian territory to Russia, even in a demilitarised zone, is the biggest sign of a slant towards Russia’s narrative, but freezing the front lines in the south could prove difficult for the Kremlin which has annexed both Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in its constitution.

One of the proposals is for the lifting of sanctions to be “agreed upon in stages and on a case-by-case basis” – which Moscow will probably see as far too slow.

However, a plan for a “full amnesty” for all parties will go down well in Moscow and very badly in Kyiv and European capitals.

Commentators have pointed out that while there do appear to be major concessions to Putin, some of the requirements for Nato might be too vague for Kremlin tastes.

Russia has also consistently demanded that a peace plan would need to eliminate what it sees as “the root causes” of the war. One of those root causes is halting Nato expansion in Eastern Europe, which the draft appears to deal with.

Some of the other 28 points of the draft also a nod to Russia’s claims of discrimination of Ukraine’s Russian-speaking population without explicitly endorsing them.

One point is explicit but even-handed: “Both countries will agree to abolish all discriminatory measures and guarantee the rights of Ukrainian and Russian media and education.”

Another apparent attempt to be even-handed comes from a proposal to distribute electricity generated by the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant – the biggest in Europe – “equally between Russia and Ukraine”.