After the talks in Geneva the 28-point peace plan (28PPP) has been cut to 19 points. But the EU has come up with its own 24-point plan that contains several points that guarantee the Kremlin will reject it.

The EU's key "red lines" remain unchanged: Ukraine's borders cannot be "changed by force" and the Ukrainian army must not be constrained by external demands. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that the EU has worked out its own 24-point list with the main differences from the US list including:

• No limitation on the number of soldiers in the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU);
• Ukraine's future Nato membership is not prohibited, and its neutrality is not required;
• Ukraine will have the right to deploy Nato forces on its territory;
• Security guarantees are to be modelled according to Nato Article 5;
• No territorial concessions is a starting condition, but border issues will be discussed after a ceasefire is in place; and
• Ukraine will be fully restored and will receive financial compensation using frozen Russian assets.

Army: It has been reported that it was Umerov’s suggestion to set the cap on the size of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) at 600,000 men, which would still leave Ukraine with by far the largest army in Europe by a factor of two. Then it was suggested that this number be increased to 800,000, before von der Leyen proposed there be no limit at all.

“There is no way that the Kremlin will accept an army that is half as large as all the armies in Europe combined on its border,” journalist and bne IntelliNews columnist Leonid Ragozin said in a social media post.

Nato: the clauses relating to Nato are among the nine points that have been cut as they were deemed too controversial. But von der Leyen's suggestion that it be reinjected in this form is a red line for the Kremlin, which has said from the very start the negotiations start and end with a legally binding ironclad guarantees that Ukraine never joins Nato. Even former Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg admitted Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was all about Nato expansion. This clause is a deal-killer.

It’s made even more disingenuous by the fact that Ukraine itself suggested during the Brest peace talks in March 2022 that it could give up its Nato ambitions and return to neutrality if it got bilateral security agreements from its allies. Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson scuppered those hopes and killed off the Istanbul peace deal that appeared due to this concession, by telling Zelenskiy the West would not offer Ukraine any security deals.

One of the really big concessions in the original 28-point plan is that the US appears to be prepared to offer Ukraine an Article 5-like security guarantee that includes a commitment to possibly send troops to Ukraine should Russia invade again. This is new as even under the Biden administration, the White House was never prepared to promise boots on the ground if Ukraine should need it. It is not clear who wrote this clause, but Axios published a leaked draft version from US sources last week.

Peacekeepers: in connection with Russia’s no-Nato obsession, the idea of Nato-forces on Ukrainian soil is anathema to the Kremlin. The idea of sending peacekeepers to Ukraine in lieu of offering real security guarantees was first floated by French President Emmanuel Macron, but later dropped in April as unworkable only to be revived again by Europe, desperately casting about for some sort of pseudo security commitment.

Territory: the EU’s instance that Ukraine gives up zero territory is a fantasy. It has been clear all along that Kyiv will have to give up some territory as bne IntelliNews has reported extensively, the West has sent some, but not enough military aid.

The policy has been from the beginning to support Ukraine so that it won’t lose the war, but cannot win, as part of the Western “containment management” strategy to present a direct conflict between the West and Russia. In its more sober moments under the Biden administration, the White House said that its goal was to “put Ukraine into the strongest possible position for when the inevitable negotiations begin.” That clearly implies the White House was expecting Ukraine to concede some land to end the war. Even Zelenskiy said during the Geneva summit that Bankova was “open” to the idea of conceding some land and anticipated this need in August 2024 when he called for a referendum to give him the authority to concede land, which is otherwise barred by the Constitution.

Reparations: Ukraine will be fully restored using the Russian frozen reserves is another fantasy. This is a backhanded way of saying the EU wants to hang onto the some $200bn of assets that are mostly in Belgium. But as bne IntelliNews has reported, the November talks on Reparation Loans failed. There is due to be another attempt at the next EU summit on December 19, but the legal challenges are significant. Europe’s half-hearted support for Ukraine will be on display again, as the issue boils down to the fact that if the deal goes ahead, Belgium will find itself on the hook for the entire €140bn sum that, if say Hungary vetoes the renewable of the freeze order, which has to happen every six months, it could have to pay all that money back to the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) the next day. Belgium wants the rest of the EU to share the risk, and most member states are refusing.

Even the loan name is insincere. Throughout the ten months of talks so far no one has mentioned reparations to the Russians once. It simply doesn’t feature in the talks. However, the Trump proposal of setting up a $100bn Ukraine reconstruction fund using the frozen money is exactly that – reparations. Moreover, this scheme would be legal, unlike the Reparation Loans. And it is also workable, as Putin has previously said he is not against using part of the frozen reserves to pay for reconstruction in Ukraine – provided some of the money is used to rebuild cities in the Russian occupied territories. Trump’s proposal solves multiple otherwise intractable problems . Yet it is another one of the nine points cut from the original 28 at the EU’s insistence.

Coverage of the story in the anglophone press has been almost universally negative, despite the fact that the proposals contain some major concessions, including dropping the Kremlin’s insistence of de jura recognition of occupied territories and Ukraine gaining real US security guarantees that include the possibility of the US coming to Ukraine’s military aid should Russia attack for a second time.

If the EU version of the deal is offered to the Kremlin it will reject it out of hand and the war will continue until the spring, when economists say Kyiv will run out of money completely and be defeated.