European and Ukrainian officials have rejected Donald Trump’s latest proposal for a lopsided peace deal that favors Moscow, warning that caving in to Russia will only encourage Vladimir Putin to attack NATO next. 

Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, told the U.S. president’s team that their 28-point blueprint for a ceasefire will fail without support from both Kyiv and European governments, which are now the biggest donors to Ukraine’s war effort.

The U.S. proposal has triggered alarm in European capitals, in part because they were completely cut out of the process of drafting it, and mostly because, in the view of one official, it amounts to nothing more than Putin’s wishlist.

Under the terms of the outline agreement reported by various international media outlets, Ukraine would be forced to give up occupied territory in the east of the country, cut its military in half, and surrender some powerful weapons. 

“For any peace plan to succeed, it has to be supported by Ukraine and it has to be supported by Europe,” Kallas told reporters in Brussels on Thursday. “The pressure must be on the aggressor, not on the victim. Rewarding aggression will only invite more of it.” 

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha told European ministers at a private meeting in Brussels that it was obvious Russia had dictated the terms of the new proposals. “The bottom line is that any peace plan is not doable if it is based on appeasement of the aggressor,” he said, according to a person directly familiar with his remarks. “This could only bring more war and brutality to Ukraine and all of Europe.”

The latest proposal comes at a precarious moment in the almost four-year-long conflict. Ukraine has suffered intensified bombardment and losses in recent days, while Moscow is due to be soon hit by the implementation of Trump’s sanctions on Russia’s biggest oil firms.

In Kyiv, a sprawling corruption scandal has engulfed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government and put him under pressure to overhaul his administration, just as European governments struggle to agree on measures to keep Ukraine supplied with weapons and cash. 

Against that backdrop, reports emerged this week that U.S. officials, led by Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, had been in talks with Russian representatives to revive stalled efforts to broker a ceasefire. 

Going nowhere

The news went down badly with officials in European capitals and in Zelenskyy’s government, not least because the proposed terms — once again — look likely to be heavily in Russia’s favor. 

Kallas said no European minister had been involved in devising the Witkoff plan, noting that “we haven’t heard of any concessions on the Russian side.” 

Less than a month ago, it seemed as if Trump had finally accepted that Russia’s leader was not to be trusted. When he announced sanctions on Russia’s two biggest oil firms, Trump said: “Every time I speak with Vladimir, I have good conversations, and then they don’t go anywhere.”

But the points contained in the latest plan amount to handing Putin his key demands: Giving the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine to Russia and cutting the size of Ukraine’s military. 

Officials and diplomats, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, voiced their frustration with the Americans’ shift in approach back toward imposing a “bad deal” on Ukraine.  

“Of course, this is worrying, but we need to stick to our position,” one EU diplomat said. “If Russia gets away with it, it’s only a matter of time before we see more Russian aggression in Ukraine, but also into EU and NATO member states.” 

Putin’s wishlist

A senior European official familiar with the new 28-point proposal said it was just a list of “points to satisfy Putin” and was a very bad plan. “But the signals are that Ukrainians have to accept it,” the senior official said. “Kyiv is making it clear that putting pressure on Ukraine is unnecessary and won’t help anyone.” 

Another senior European official said the timing of the latest White House effort is especially unfortunate given that Zelensky “is already hard pressed by military gains by Russia and the internal turmoil of the corruption scandal.”

Europeans are facing another stark realization: Their efforts to buy themselves a place at the negotiating table by agreeing to foot the bill for new defense aid going to Ukraine don’t appear to be working out.

“How do Europeans have so little agency here even when we’re now paying the entire bill?” the second senior European official said, calling the proposed concessions being asked of Ukraine “unreasonable.” 

In a statement after receiving the full document at a meeting with American officials on Thursday, Zelenskyy’s office stopped short of outright rejection of the plan. But the statement suggested that Ukraine did not accept that the proposal, as it currently stands, would deliver a “just” peace.

“The President of Ukraine has officially received from the American side a draft plan which, in the American side’s assessment, could help reinvigorate diplomacy,” the statement said. “The President of Ukraine outlined the fundamental principles that matter to our people, and following today’s meeting, the parties agreed to work on the plan’s provisions in a way that would bring about a just end to the war.”

A German official said Chancellor Friedrich Merz was working “very intensively” to coordinate a European response that kept the peace proposal on the right track for Ukraine. Trump’s new plan is just the latest example of a classic strategy of his, the official added: Putting pressure on everyone at once. 

The U.S. sanctions against Russian oil firms will soon take effect and Trump has also made clear his support for a new Senate bill paving the way for more measures against Moscow, the German official said. “We have also seen increased American military advice to Ukraine in recent days. So this is the classic American dual strategy of applying pressure on all sides. Europe now needs to exert its influence by coordinating its efforts.”

Nette Nöstlinger, Seb Starcevic, Esther Webber and Clea Caulcutt contributed reporting.