Donald Trump's 28-point peace plan to end the war in Ukraine has sparked astonishment in Kyiv, as officials process how it appears to call for a full capitulation to Vladimir Putin's draconian demands after almost four years of conflict.

Ukraine woke up Friday to a controversial U.S. proposal - based off the Gaza war ceasefire - that would force it to give up its land, cut its army in half and hold elections within 100 days.

'Being f***ing mind blown has become our norm,' a senior lawmaker from President Volodymyr Zelensky's party told AFP, reflecting the mood in Ukraine.

U.S. President Donald Trump backs the draft proposal that would also see Kyiv pledge never to join NATO.

Ukraine is facing greater pressure from Washington to agree to the framework of a U.S.-brokered peace deal with Russia than in previous negotiation efforts, including threats to cease provision of intelligence and weapons, according to sources familiar with the matter.

One of the sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the U.S. wanted Ukraine to sign a framework of the deal by next Thursday.

Washington's draft appeared to heed to the demands of the Kremlin, whose 2022 invasion has turned into Europe's worst conflict since World War II.

Under the plan, Moscow would not only keep territories that it occupies but get more land currently controlled by Ukraine.

The West would lift sanctions on Russia and Moscow would be invited back into the G8.

The plan would also pile pressure on Zelensky, requiring elections to be held in Ukraine within 100 days - another key demand being pushed by Moscow, which has repeatedly and openly called for the Ukrainian leader to be toppled.

Zelensky has said he will discuss the plan with Trump in the 'coming days' - so far not saying if Kyiv would agree to any of it.

He has insisted his country needed a 'dignified peace'.

'With a neighbour like Russia, defending one's own dignity, freedom, and independence is an extremely difficult task,' he said Friday.

The European Union has not officially received the U.S. proposal but it would be discussed on the sidelines of the G20 in South Africa, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.

Putin had not commented but Viktor Orban, Hungary's prime minister who is close to the Kremlin and Washington, said it was a 'decisive moment' and the coming weeks will be 'crucial'.

Reports that the United States and Russia were secretly working on a plan to end the conflict were leaked earlier this week, but the White House denied that it had prepared it with Moscow.

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with Transport Minister Andrey Nikitin (not pictured) at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, November 20, 2025

It said its envoy Steve Witkoff - who skipped a meeting with Zelensky this week - and Secretary of State Marco Rubio had been 'quietly' working with both sides.

'The president supports this plan. It's a good plan for both Russia and Ukraine,' White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.

Washington has warned, however, that the document was still in working mode, while Kyiv said it had been presented as a 'draft plan'.

Under the plan, the United States would recognise Ukraine's eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions as well as Moscow-annexed Crimea, as 'de facto Russian'.

'Ukrainian forces will withdraw from the part of Donetsk Oblast that they currently control,' the plan envisages.

The Donetsk region has been the epicentre of fighting, with tens of thousands of troops killed on both sides.

Despite still controlling around 14.5 per cent of the territory in the mineral and coal-rich eastern Donbas region, Ukraine will be forced to surrender the entirety of its industrial heartland.

The frontline would be frozen in the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, which are both partly occupied by Moscow.

Russia would be required to give up small pockets of territory it has seized in the Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

Ukraine would receive unspecified 'reliable security guarantees' while at the same time commit to cutting the size of its army, from over 900,000 to 600,000 personnel.

It would also bind Ukraine to 'enshrine in its constitution' not to join NATO but calls for European jets to be stationed in neighbouring NATO-member Poland.

The country would be banned from possessing long-range missiles, capable of hitting St Petersburg or Moscow.

And $100 billion of Russia's frozen funds - sanctioned after its full-scale invasion in February 2022 - would go towards U.S.-led reconstruction efforts, with Europe contributing another $100 billion.

The U.S. would reap the benefits of the rebuilding projects, receiving 50 per cent of profits. The Russian economy would also receive a boost as part of a new long-term economic cooperation agreement with the U.S., which will involve rare earth metal extraction projects in the Arctic.

Aside for getting to keep its conquered territory, the plan also calls for Moscow, which is under massive Western sanctions for more than three years, to be 're-integrated into the global economy'.

Sanctions would be lifted and Moscow could rejoin the G8, which it was expelled from over the 2014 annexation of Crimea.

Trump's sympathies have flipped repeatedly between Moscow and Kyiv since he returned to the White House earlier this year, with this plan seen as a sign that he has taken on many of Russia's key positions.

The proposal comes with Russian troops grinding forward on the battlefield and with Zelensky facing domestic pressure after a corruption scandal rocked the country's war-hit energy sector.

In a statement on X, Zelensky wrote: 'The American side presented points of a plan to end the war- their vision. I outlined our key principles. We agreed that our teams will work on the points to ensure it's all genuine.'

Ukrainian officials said the U.S. wanted Zelensky to sign the proposal before Thanksgiving, which falls on Thursday next week, with sources suggesting that the stiff deadline was unlikely to give Kyiv enough time to negotiate.

On Thursday, European countries pushed back against the plan, indicating they would not accept demands for Kyiv to make punishing concessions.

'Ukrainians want peace - a just peace that respects everyone's sovereignty, a durable peace that can't be called into question by future aggression,' said French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot.

'But peace cannot be a capitulation.'

Moscow has downplayed the significance of the plan. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said that, while there had been 'contacts' with the U.S., there was 'no process that could be called"consultations"'.

He emphasised that any peace deal would have to address the 'root causes of the conflict' - a phrase the Kremlin has used as shorthand for the maximalist demands which, to Kyiv, are equivalent to surrender.

Despite the momentum building towards peace, Russia has shown no sign of stopping its relentless strikes on Ukrainian civilians.

An attack on the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia late on Thursday killed five people and injured three, the regional governor said.

It came after a Russian drone and missile attack in western Ukraine killed at least 26 people, including three children, after a block of flats in Ternopil was struck.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Thursday Kyiv and Europe needed to be involved in any Ukraine peace plan.

'For any plan to work, it needs Ukrainians and Europeans on board,' Kallas told reporters ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

'We have to understand that in this war, there is one aggressor and one victim. So we haven't heard of any concessions on the Russian side.'

Recent events may have further weakened Ukraine's position. Russia's tactic of pummeling the nation's energy and transport infrastructure will likely plunge swaths of the country into cold and darkness, while Putin has made territorial gains in the east and on the southern flank in Zaporizhzhia.

To make matters worse, Kyiv is facing a manpower crisis: some four out of five Ukrainians are fleeing military training centres after being drafted into the army, and last month saw a record 21,000 deserters.

A corruption scandal is also engulfing the president that led to parliament dismissing the energy and justice ministers on Wednesday, diverting attention from the war.

In a telling post on X, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said: 'Ending a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and realistic ideas.

'And achieving a durable peace will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions.'

The proposal has been described as 'heavily tilted towards Vladimir Putin,' by unnamed sources quoted in the Financial Times.

The draft plan is 'very comfortable for Putin,' another source said.

Kyiv will not accept any deal that crosses its 'red lines', the country's top negotiator said Friday, as European allies scramble to respond to the draft.

'There can be no decisions outside the framework of our sovereignty, the security of our people, or our red lines - now or ever,' Kyiv's security council chief and negotiator Rustem Umerov said on social media.

Efforts to reach a peace deal have largely frozen since the last meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska in August, while Kyiv and Moscow have not held direct negotiations since the summer.

Russian forces control about 19 per cent of Ukrainian territory (44,800 square miles) and are grinding forwards, up from 18 per cent nearly three years ago.

Zelensky met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on Wednesday in an effort to 'intensify' peace negotiations.

He was due to hold talks with Witkoff, but the meeting was postponed because the Ukrainian President intended to discuss an alternative plan drafted by EU allies which the Trump administration felt would be unacceptable to Putin, a U.S. source told Axios.