War in Ukraine: A Peace Plan That Looks Like a Capitulation?

The peace plan unveiled by the United States to end the war in Ukraine has created a global diplomatic shock. Presented on November 20, 2025, in Kyiv by the American special envoy, this document marks a radical break with Western positions defended since the beginning of the Russian invasion in 2022.

For the first time, Washington proposes an agreement that would de facto recognize Russia's territorial gains, impose permanent military neutralization on Ukraine, and marginalize Europeans, who were kept out of its development.

Several sources indicate that the plan was reportedly prepared through a discreet channel between Steve Witkoff, an emissary of Donald Trump, and Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian sovereign wealth fund, considered one of the Kremlin's closest interlocutors.

At the heart of the plan is a major territorial redrawing. The United States would agree to recognize Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk as Russian territories, which would constitute a historic turning point in Western policy. The Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, for their part, would be divided along the current front line, enshrining a status quo that would endorse Russian military conquests. A demilitarized buffer zone would also be created in a part of the Donetsk region still controlled by Ukraine, forcing Kyiv to withdraw in favor of Moscow.

This approach amounts to depriving Ukraine of approximately one-fifth of its internationally recognized territory and legitimizing annexations that the international community has never accepted since 2014.

The text also imposes a profound reconfiguration of Ukrainian national security. Ukraine would have to permanently renounce joining NATO, enshrine its neutrality in its constitution, and reduce its armed forces from 800,000 to 600,000 soldiers. No foreign army would be allowed to be stationed in Ukraine, and European aircraft intended to reinforce Kyiv would have to be housed in Poland, outside Ukrainian territory.

These measures would significantly limit the country's defense capabilities and place its future security in almost total dependence on the United States, without a formal guarantee of military assistance.

Politically, the plan calls for the organization of general elections within one hundred days, in a context where Volodymyr Zelensky is weakened by a corruption scandal involving his entourage.

The American demand appears to be a desire to recompose the Ukrainian political scene while the war continues and institutions operate under a state of emergency. The economic component plans to use frozen Russian assets to finance Ukraine's reconstruction, while also proposing Russia's return to the G8, a prospect that symbolizes Moscow's international rehabilitation despite three years of war, massive destruction, and recognized violations of international law.