Most of the anglophone coverage of the US 28-point peace plan has been negative, suggesting it is nothing more than a capitulation to Russian aggression. EU foreign policy chief and former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas in particular said there are “no concessions” in the proposal and complained that Europe and Ukraine were not consulted. That is not entirely true. There were several concessions in the deal, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s an extremely unpalatable offer.

Dealing with the concessions point first. Russian President Vladimir Putin line is that he believes he is winning the war and so there is no need to make concessions. Depending on where you stand on this claim (more below) dictates your attitude for the need for the Kremlin to make concessions.

It certainly has become a sticking point. The lack of wiggle room was what killed off the Budapest trilateral meeting proposal. Putin very clearly doesn’t believe he needs to make any concessions and has been sticking to his maximalist guns. That is what has been frustrating Trump, who equally clearly not only wants to bring the war to an end, but also wants to do business with Russia. This deal is full of business and payments to the US. You’ll notice that both minerals and energy come up prominently, underscoring again the line I have been taking that Trump is all about the minerals and money, and does really care about anything else.

But let’s go through what concessions are there, as reported by Meduza, citing journalist Farida Rustamova and political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya:

-Russia forfeits official de jure recognition of its “new borders;”

-Russia forfeits formally annexed territory in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions that it hasn’t yet occupied;

-Russia abandons its footholds in the Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions (just a day after Putin was briefed on the capture of Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region);

-Russia tolerates a 600,000–strong standing army in Ukraine (which would be Europe’s biggest); and

-Russia agrees to lose its $280bn in frozen assets, with $100bn allocated to Ukraine’s reconstruction and the rest going to a joint US–Russian fund for shared projects.

These are all new.

Land: Previously, the Kremlin was clear that it wants de jura recognition of its sovereignty over all five (now seven) occupied or partially occupied regions. Now it appears that it is willing to accept recognition of de facto control by the rest of the world in a Cyprus-scenario. And the Kremlin is willing to withdraw for the two regions it recently entered: Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk.

Army: The reduction of the size of the military is another difficult one, however, that was already agreed to in the Istanbul peace deal in April 2022 so it's not too big a climb down. Moreover, a halving of Ukraine’s forces sounds dramatic, but this remains a sizable force. Zelenskiy stated in early 2025 that 880,000 people currently serve in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, in peacetime the army's size never exceeded 250,000.

Zelenskiy has said many times that in lieu of real security deals with the West, Ukraine needs to have its “own Nato” – a formidable military to dissuade Russia from attacking again. Is 600,000 men enough? That is something that Bankova will have to decide, but given Russia started this war with about 750,000 men it seems like a decent number.

Money: And Putin has softened his position on the $300bn of frozen CBR money. Previously, the Kremlin said it was not against Ukraine using that money for the rebuild, but insisted on sharing it proportionately with Russia to pay for the rebuild of the regions still under the Kremlin’s control.

As we reported before, as the worst damage is all in the Russian sector the split would be (very roughly) $100bn vs $200bn for Ukraine and Russia respectively. In Trump’s deal, the Kremlin concedes a larger sum and it won’t have control over the $100bn it does get as it has to share that with the US.

So, from this perspective the deal is about as good as you could expect.

Zelenskiy’s POV

From Zelenskiy’s perspective he has various serious problems that could all bring the war to an end soon irrespective of his courage and determination.

Men: It has been widely reported that Ukraine’s conscription programme is going really badly. On top of that, Europe fatigue with the refugees means that allies are pushing Bankova to take some men back. On top of that the desertion rate is rising: there are over 100,000 cases in court and the true number of deserters is something around 250,000 according to estimates. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz went as far as cutting benefits and telling Zelenskiy to lower the conscription age to solve these problems.

Putin doesn’t have these problems. Janis Kluge, fellow at the Stiftung Wissenshaft und Politik (SWP), Eastern Europe and Eurasia Group just reported that while it's getting more difficult, Russia’s voluntary recruitment programme is still garnering some 30,000 recruits a month – enough to cover the dead and wounded from the fighting. Plus Putin has introduced a conscription-lite scheme to bolster defences at home.

Money: As we have reported extensively, Ukraine is almost bankrupt, the US has sent no money to Ukraine since Trump took over, and the EU effort to organise the Reparation Loans looks almost certain to fail – recently reports say that even if it is accepted at the next EU summit on December 19, the first money will not arrive until March as the earliest. Ukraine needs some €130bn for this year and next and without it then it is facing a macroeconomic collapse.

Russia doesn’t really have this problem either. While the budget is under pressure and on course to end the year with a 3.4% of GDP deficit from 1.9% now that is not extreme – France has a budget deficit of 5.4% that will go even higher next year – and there is plenty of liquidity in the banking sector that can cover the deficit many times over. Just this week the MinFin issued a new batch of OFZ treasury bills to cover expanded military spending. Plus, a two point hike in VAT is due to come into effect in January. And Russia has a tiny amount of debt, while most of the Western debt is more than the value of their entire economies.

Materiel: Ukraine has made spectacular progress in developing its drone industry and is now making over 4mn a year – almost double last year’s output. Plus it has been innovating so its drones can fly further with big payloads that have been causing chaos in Russia’s oil refinery business. But it doesn’t have any long-range missiles (there is only one reported use of the new Flamingo cruise missile so far) and it is running low on Patriot air defence ammo which is entirely supplied by the US.

Putin doesn’t have this problem either. Russia has doubled its missile production in the last year to 2,500 a year now – enough to fire 50 per week – which it has been using to devastating effect to destroy what remains of Ukraine’s power sector. There was a big strike yesterday against the power infrastructure at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) facilities. Plus, after putting the Russian economy on a war footing three years ago, according to some reports, Russia is now producing a surplus of arms and has begun restocking. Even European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen admitted that Russia is outproducing all of European Nato plus Ukraine.

Scandal: And on top of all these old problems, the expanding Energoatom corruption scandal, where close friends of the president were running a $100bn kickback scam, is threatening to bring the government down.

Taken all together, it appears that the White House thinks that Ukraine is close to losing the war and Zelenskiy is under such pressure that he will be forced to take the deal – basically the Putin-dictated “final offer” that Trump tried to force on Ukraine at the London summit in April.

On the flip side, Zelenskiy has to calculate if European support is going to come through and he can afford to fight on and refuse this deal before getting his “just” peace.

At this point Zelenskiy is committed to the second option. Ukraine’s deputy UN ambassador told the assembly yesterday: Ukraine would not give up any of its sovereign territory; would not be dictated to over which alliances it can join; and would not reduce the size of its military.

Still, he has an awkward few weeks ahead where he cannot afford to alienate the White House in the hope at least he still needs the US to sell arms to Ukraine using EU money. Reportedly, he is working on a counteroffer and given Bankova’s bargaining success over the terms of the mineral deal in April, this process could take some time.

But Trump’s withdrawal from the conflict changes everything. And the argument between the White House and Brussels complaints that it was not consulted starkly highlights that Ukraine’s allies are bickering amongst themselves, which only strengthens Putin’s hand. The US and the EU are now in open conflict over what they want to achieve with Ukraine.

The bottom line is that I can’t see Europe being able to take on the Ukraine burden. Even Nato General Secretary Mark Rutte has said that the war can’t be won without US help.

The discussions on the Reparation Loans look almost certain to fail. The manpower problem cannot be solved as Kyiv has recruited all the available men and the shortage on the frontline is so chronic now there are gapping kilometre-long holes in the defence. With the rising desertions that is only going to get worse.

And the weapons shortage is not going to get better because not only does Europe not have the money, the US stockpiles are so low, especially after the Iran-Israel war this summer, that the Pentagon is already very reluctant to let Ukraine dig any deeper into the barrel. The decision to not send Ukraine Tomahawk missiles is a case in point.

Capitulation of course would be the end of Zelenskiy's political career. He would probably have to flee the country too for his own security. But this war is looking increasingly unwinnable. The economic consequences for Europe have been worse than the impact of sanctions on Russia. The deal on the table now is on a par, or possibly even slightly better, than the deal agreed in Istanbul in the first month of the war. If there is no prospect of a military victory, or a Russian economic collapse, then what is the point of fighting on as, despite the “just a little more” rhetoric, there is no practical way the West can increase the pressure on Putin.

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