Putin Calls Trump's Ukraine Peace Plan a Basis for Final Settlement as Kyiv Faces Thursday Deadline

On Friday, speaking to Russia's national security council, Vladimir Putin said Moscow had received the American 28-point plan to end the war in Ukraine, and that it "could form the basis of a final peace settlement." He described it as a new, modernised version of what Russia and the United States had discussed before his August summit with Donald Trump in Alaska.

Putin also said Ukraine was being unrealistic if it refused to accept the plan. Kyiv is against it, he said, and he argued that Ukraine and its European allies were still under illusions and dreaming of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia on the battlefield. The Kremlin's welcome strengthens the view of European and Ukrainian officials that the deal amounts to capitulation. It came on day 1,368 of the war.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy answered in a sombre ten-minute speech outside the presidential palace. He said Ukraine faces one of the most difficult moments in its history. The plan would force Ukraine to give up territory and accept other painful concessions, and agreeing to it, he said, could leave the country without freedom, dignity and justice. He also signalled that Ukraine must reckon with the possibility of losing US support if it makes a stand.

The pressure has a date attached. Trump has demanded that Kyiv accept the plan by Thursday. In a radio interview, he said he thought that was an appropriate time for Zelenskyy to sign. Asked whether a settlement might embolden Putin against his European neighbours, Trump said Putin is not thinking of more war but of punishment. He added that the conflict was supposed to be a one-day war and has now lasted four years.

Zelenskyy spent part of Friday sounding out European allies, speaking by phone to German chancellor Friedrich Merz, French president Emmanuel Macron and British prime minister Keir Starmer. According to Merz's office, the three assured him of their unchanged and full support on the way to a lasting and just peace. They said any agreement had to be genuinely fair and take account of Ukraine's own red lines.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas was blunter. Russia's war, she said, is an existential threat to Europe, and while everyone wants it to end, how it ends matters. Russia has no legal right to concessions from the country it invaded, she said, and the terms are ultimately for Ukraine to decide.

The Financial Times reported that Washington has told Ukrainian and European officials there is little room to negotiate. Late on Friday, US army secretary Daniel Driscoll met European ambassadors and western officials in what the paper called a volatile meeting. "We are not negotiating details," Driscoll said, according to a senior European official who was present. Another official described the tone as "nauseating."

Separately, Poland's ambassador to South Korea, Bartosz Wisniewski, voiced great concerns over North Korea's involvement in the war. Security on the Korean peninsula, central Europe and the eastern flank has become intertwined, he said. The Guardian has previously reported that hundreds of North Korean troops have been killed in the conflict.

The next marker is Thursday. What to watch is whether Kyiv signs, and whether American support holds if it does not.