A new US 28-point plan to end the war in Ukraine suddenly burst on to the scene on November 20, as the White House hopes to use the growing pressure on Ukraine to force terms on Kyiv as soon as this week.

After the Alaska summit on August 15 between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and the subsequent failure to organize the Budapest trilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the ceasefire talks have been dead in the water. Despite suggesting that he is open to talks, Putin has stuck to his maximalist demands that are tantamount to a demand for Ukraine to capitulate and contain no significant concessions at all.

The existence of the "secret deal” was independently confirmed today by Politico, Financial Times and Axios, although the details are not know but the plan's 28 points fall into four general buckets, sources told Axios: peace in Ukraine, security guarantees, security in Europe, and future U.S. relations with Russia and Ukraine. The FT confirmed the broad brush strokes speaking to Ukrainian officials that have seen the text:

-        Reduce the size of the military by at least half;

-        Ban certain powerful western-supplied weapons;

-        Ban on deployment of foreign peacekeeping troops in Ukraine;

-        Exit and hand over the remaining territory in Donbas that is not held by Russia;

-        US security guarantees;

-        Recognition of Russia as an official language;

-        Russian Orthodox Church given permission to operate in Ukraine; and

-        Zelenskiy replaced as president.

There has been no mention of Nato in the deal and reportedly the Trump administration is still debating what position to take on this question. The Kremlin has from the start insisted that the West provide legally binding ironclad guarantees that Ukraine never applies for membership.

More details emerged by evening. Specifically, Russia will agree to recognize the part of Donbas not actually occupied by the Armed Forces of Russia (AFR) as a demilitarized zone and not deploy troops there, Axios reports.

In the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, the front line is expected to be largely frozen, but negotiated territory swaps are not ruled out.

The deal also specifies that the US and other countries recognize Crimea and Donbas as Russian territory, but will not demand the same from Ukraine, effectively kicking the Crimea question down the road.

A Kremlin-connected source told The Bell that the US proposals are "not a plan, but a mixture of real points with good intentions," noting that some of them are completely unacceptable to Ukraine. However, the Kremlin believes that the plan's appearance is a step forward, although peace is still a long way off.

The plan is inspired by Trump's successful push for a deal in Gaza, Axios reported. Dmitriev said the new effort was entirely unrelated to the UK-led push to draft a Gaza-style peace plan for Ukraine, which he said had no chance of success because it disregards Russia's positions.

Parallel talks

The deal has emerged from talks between Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, who met in Miami between October 24 and 26.

Dmitriev expressed optimism about the deal's chances of success in comments to Axios because, unlike past efforts, "we feel the Russian position is really being heard."

According to reports, Witkoff also talked to Ukraine’s Defence Minister Rustam Umerov, who is currently in the US with his family. According to the FT, Witkoff conveyed the plan to Ukraine through Umerov.

The White House is upbeat about the prospects for the plan, saying it could be agreed by the end of this month, or “even this week.”

Kyiv and Brussels were caught out by the announcement of the plan, which appears to have been leaked to the US press by Dmitriev. They have not been consulted and Politico reported that the White House intends to present the plan to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as a fait accompli.

“It seems that Trump and Putin thought that events in Pokrovsk and the Energoatom affair have weakened Ze to the point that he is now desperate for a deal - hence the effort to cram him into this bad deal for Ukraine. It is not going to happen,” Timothy Ash, the senior sovereign strategist at BlueBay Asset Management in London, said in an emailed comment.

Zelenskiy was in Istanbul on November 19 to discuss "revitalizing negotiations" and a "just peace" with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is offering to intermediate. Witkoff was supposed to join that meeting, but cancelled after Zelenskiy made it clear that he would reject the US plan.

Turkey participated in the preparation of the American plan, according to Axios, which also reported that Zelenskiy has an alternative plan that has been worked out with his EU allies, but it is totally unacceptable to Moscow.

Same deal as before

The new US plan appears to be very similar to both the terms of the Istanbul peace deal agreed in April 2022, but later rejected by Zelenskiy after the West refused to provide Ukraine with security deals. US President Donald Trump also pushed a revived version of the same proposals with his “final offer” in April this year, which again largely contained all of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s maximalist demands, which Zelenskiy also refused.

The new plan highlights the growing disconnect between Washington and Brussels which appear to be working on different tracks. The White House is bullish on this matter: it believes Ukraine should approve the plan as a whole, as it is "reasonable" and acceptable to them.

"We're not particularly interested in what Europe thinks," Politico quotes its source as saying. "The question is whether Ukraine will accept it."

Trump has clearly become frustrated with the lack of a deal that he claimed he could close on his first day in office during his election campaign last year. He finally upped the pressure on the Kremlin earlier this month with his first new oil sanctions on Russia, but as bne IntelliNews reported, he remains keen to do business with Russia as part of his minerals diplomacy that has driven foreign policy so far.

The feeling in Washington is that a weakened Zelenskiy will have no choice and will have to accept any terms offered to him. Ukraine is still suffering from a chronic lack of men, money and materiel but in addition, Bankova has been hit by the debilitating $100mn Energoatom corruption scandal that was perpetrated by close friends of the president, some of whom immediately fled the country.

The scandal continues to expand. National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) that carried out the investigation said on November 19 that a total of 40 government officials are implicated and confirmed that Zelenskiy and head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andriy Yermak, are both included in the evidence, but has given no details year. Calls for Zelenskiy have already begun amongst his political opponents and the scandal could potentially bring the government down.

Military delegation

In parallel to the diplomatic shell game being played out on a ceasefire deal, on the same day a US military delegation led by US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and several senior US army generals arrived in Kyiv for talks with the Ukrainian leadership.

Officially, on a fact-finding mission, but The Wall Street Journal reported that the generals were acting on Trump's instructions and may have met with Russian representatives on terms to end the war.

Driscoll has played a key role in the war, overseeing all arms shipments from US arsenals to Ukraine. Before leaving for Kyiv, he received instructions from Witkoff, CNN reports. Furthermore, he is a classmate and close friend of US Vice President J.D. Vance, the agency notes. Zelenskiy will meet with Driscoll on Thursday, November 20.