US proposal to end Ukraine war requires Kiev to cede land, cut army size — reports

Ukraine has received a new peace proposal from the United States, which requires Kiev to cede land controlled by Russia and more than halve its army's size, officials told Reuters and the AFP news agency.

The plan appears to repeat Russia's maximalist terms — demands consistently rejected by Ukraine as tantamount to capitulation.

The draft provides for "recognition of Crimea and other regions that the Russians have taken" and "reduction of the army to 400,000 personnel", the source, who does not wish to be identified, told AFP.

The plan would also see Ukraine giving up all long-range weapons.

"An important nuance is that we don't understand whether this is really Trump's story" or "his entourage's", the official added.

It was "unclear" what Russia was supposed to do in return, according to the source.

US media outlet Axios earlier reported Moscow and Washington had been working on a secret plan to end the almost four-year war.

Russia now occupies around a fifth of Ukrainian territory — much of it ravaged by fighting.

Moscow has repeatedly demanded it retains territory in southern and eastern Ukraine that it occupies and for Kiev to cede even more land.

Moscow in 2022 annexed four Ukrainian regions — Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson — despite not having full control over them.

Russia also annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and has fully controlled it since then.

'American leadership must remain effective'

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that US leadership had to remain effective in order to bring the more than 3 1/2-year-old war with Russia to an end.

"The main thing for stopping the bloodshed and achieving lasting peace is that we work in coordination with all our partners and that American leadership remains effective, strong," Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram after talks in Ankara with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.

Zelenskyy said only the United States and President Donald Trump "have sufficient strength for the war to finally come to an end."

The Ukrainian president also said Erdogan had proposed different formats for talks, "and it is important for us that Türkiye is ready to provide the necessary platform."

Trump has sought to leverage his relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin to end the war, but has so far failed to make progress.

Since the start of his second term, Trump's position on the Ukraine war has shifted dramatically back and forth.

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Source: TRT