US peace plan for Ukraine derived from Russian paper, Say sources

The US-backed 28-point peace plan to end the war in Ukraine, which became public last week, drew from a Russian-authored paper submitted to the Trump administration in October, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

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The Russians shared the paper, which outlined Moscow’s conditions for ending the war, with senior US officials in mid-October, following a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington, the sources said.

The paper, a nonofficial communication known in diplomatic parlance as a “non-paper”, contained language that the Russian government had previously put forward at the negotiating table, including concessions that Ukraine had rejected such as ceding a significant chunk of its territory in the east.

This is the first confirmation that the document - whose existence was initially reported by Reuters in October — was a key input in the 28-point peace plan.

The US State Department and the Russian and Ukrainian embassies in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.

The White House did not comment directly on the non-paper but cited Mr Trump’s comments that he was optimistic about the 28-point plan’s progress.

“In the hopes of finalising this Peace Plan, I have directed my Special Envoy Steve Witkoff to meet with President Putin in Moscow and, at the same time, Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll will be meeting with the Ukrainians,’ Mr Trump wrote.