Where peace stands after frantic diplomacy

Are we close to peace in Ukraine?

After a few days of frantic, often confusing diplomacy, Donald Trump thinks so.

“We are getting very close to an agreement,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who looked and sounded serious over the weekend, said there were now “several possibilities that could make the path to peace real”.

“There are important results,” he said after reviewing the results of Sunday’s key discussions in Geneva, “and there is still much work to be done.”

But on the Russian side, apart from some disgruntled grumblings about European involvement and unauthorized leaks, the response has been somewhat slow.

Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said on Wednesday that Moscow viewed some elements of the latest draft positively, but “many require special discussion among experts”.

Separately, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it would be “premature” to think an agreement is close.

Given the gap that exists between Ukraine and Russia on many key issues – including territory, NATO membership, who should pay for Ukraine’s reconstruction and how those involved in war crimes will be held accountable – it is difficult to see that all the necessary things will be put in place any time soon.

Last Wednesday seems like ages ago. That’s when a leaked draft of a 28-point American plan to end the war surfaced for the first time.

The plan, in terms of which Ukraine would leave the region and limit the size of its military, was described by some as a “Russian wish list”, causing consternation in Kiev and sending European diplomats to limit alleged damage.

In some ways, it felt like a repeat of the events of August, when worried European leaders rushed to Washington to bend Trump’s ear after the US president rolled out the red carpet for Putin in Alaska.

By the weekend, the Europeans had drafted a counter-proposal, also 28 points long, that replaced the U.S. plan’s blunt territorial concessions with “negotiations on territorial swaps” and toughened the language on security guarantees, a key concern of Kiev.

But it is unclear how much influence the Europeans had on Sunday’s talks in Geneva.

A joint US-Ukrainian statement issued after the talks ended hailed the discussions as “highly productive”, adding that any future agreement must lead to a “durable and just peace”.

Sir Keir Starmer was one of several European leaders who took the words “sustainable and equitable” as indicating that progress had been made.

Ukrainian officials were also relieved. First Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergiy Kislitsya, said the latest version of the plan has been whittled down to just 19 points, with the most controversial issues – the region and Ukraine’s future relations with NATO – left for Trump and Zelensky to decide.

Amid allegations and counter-allegations over how the original 28-point version leaked (pointing fingers in many directions), a tight curtain of secrecy has been drawn around the latest version.

Despite talks in Abu Dhabi between the US military secretary, Dan Driscoll (a new member of Trump’s Ukraine team), Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, Kirill Budanov, and Russian officials, Ushakov says the plan has still not been discussed in detail.

With Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff scheduled to arrive in Moscow next week and Zelensky set to make another visit to the White House, it looks like the pace of diplomacy is not going to slow down.

But where are we?

“We are now on a fast track to something,” says Daniel Fried, former US assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.

“On the fast track to failure or success, I can’t say, but it’s moving fast.”

Ambassador Fried says last week’s 28-point US plan was a “mess” but the inspiration behind it is real.

“To the Trump administration’s credit, it is working hard to reach an agreement.”

The sense of fear that gripped Kiev last week – which led Zelensky to observe that Ukraine was facing one of the most difficult moments in its history – has gone away.

“In Geneva, the Ukrainian delegation was very satisfied,” says Myroslava Gongadze, a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, speaking from Kiev.

“The purpose of the exercise was not really to get an agreement, but to debunk that 28-point plan and have some Ukrainian interest in that potential negotiation and show that Ukraine is really ready to discuss and negotiate.”

But if Kiev feels it has successfully coped with some of the worst of what was being demanded – and we still don’t know how much – then there are a lot of concerns.

Chief among them: If it eventually reaches a deal with a country that has launched an unprovoked invasion of its territory and still covets more, what kind of security guarantees can it expect to get?

“The essential question we should ask here is what are the security guarantees,” says Gongadze. “Who will provide these guarantees, who will be held accountable and what limits will not be crossed?

“If the answers are weak, it is setting Ukraine up for another crisis.”

In response to the original US document’s vague promise to offer a “credible security guarantee”, European leaders called for a US guarantee that “reflects Article 5”, a reference to NATO’s principle of collective defence.

Last week, the Axios news website reported the existence of a separate US paper presented to Ukraine, which outlines “security assurances based on the principles of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty adapted to the circumstances of this conflict”.

This important aspect of the plan is clearly still a work in progress. Following Tuesday’s virtual meeting of the UK-French-led Willing coalition, participants agreed with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to “accelerate joint work with the United States to advance planning on security guarantees.”

Sir Keir Starmer says operational plans for a multinational “reassurance force” for Ukraine have been fully formed, but until the Trump administration signals what, if any, backup it is willing to provide, those plans remain largely theoretical.

“Security guarantees have to be eliminated,” says Ambassador Fried.

“The Coalition of Willing is a great idea, but it has not reached any conclusion to date, partly because they are waiting to see whether the Americans will support them and partly because they are waiting to see what they are going to do.”

What area we are in is another big unknown.

Last week’s 28-point plan clearly stated that Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk would be “recognized as de facto Russian”, and Ukrainian forces would withdraw from the heavily contested parts of the Donetsk region still under Kiev’s control.

All this language disappeared in the European counterproposal. It added that Ukraine “will commit not to reclaim its occupied sovereign territory through military means”. It states that all regional talks will begin from the “line of contact” – the current front line.

It is not known to what extent Europe’s perspective informed the document that emerged after the talks in Geneva.

The joint US-Ukrainian communique provided only a veiled insight, saying both sides “reaffirmed that any future agreement must fully preserve Ukraine’s sovereignty”.

The word “completely” seems too heavy.

Given Trump’s volatile approach to the war in Ukraine, Putin’s longstanding ambitions, and Zelensky’s domestic difficulties – the current round of diplomacy is taking place amid a corruption scandal that is undermining his domestic standing – it is extremely difficult to know where this process will go next.

But it may be overly optimistic to think that we are near the end.

“We’re still in the middle of this process,” says Leslie Shedd, another non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council.

“There’s definitely still a long way to go.”

But for all the apparent chaos surrounding the Trump administration’s efforts, including the constantly changing — and possibly competing — cast of characters, Shade believes the administration is serious.

“It seems like the president … (is) really prioritizing making peace in Ukraine. And I think that’s really important.”