US President Donald Trump has given Ukraine less than a week to accept a plan widely seen to favor Russia to end the war, as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the country was facing “one of the most difficult moments” in its history.
“We’ve had a lot of deadlines, and if things are going well, we tend to extend them. But Thursday is the deadline,” the president said in a radio interview with Fox News.
Trump’s 28-point plan puts pressure on Kiev to cede territory, limit the size of its military and commit to not joining NATO in exchange for an end to the war, all long-standing demands of the Kremlin.
President Zelenskiy, in a video address to the nation on Friday, characterized it as forcing Ukraine to choose between losing its dignity or losing an important ally.
President Trump said in the Oval Office later that day that he believed the plan was “a way to achieve peace,” but said it still needed Zelensky’s approval. But he suggested Zelenskyy had little choice but to accept.
“He’s going to like it. If he doesn’t like it, I think he should keep fighting,” Trump told reporters.
Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin told a Security Council briefing that he had received the US proposal and believed it “could form the basis of a final peace settlement.”
The Russian president said he was ready to “show flexibility” agreed at a summit with Trump in Alaska in August, but added that Russia had not “substantively” discussed the deal with the United States.
“The pressure on Ukraine is now at its most intense. Ukraine may now face a very difficult choice: either lose its dignity, risk losing an important partner, 28 difficult points, or face an extremely harsh winter,” President Zelenskiy said in a video address.
Zelenskiy said Ukraine would “work calmly and swiftly” with the United States and its partners to end the war. Mr. Zelenskiy spoke about the plan with U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday.
Since details of President Trump’s proposal were released, many European leaders have spoken out in support of Ukraine, vowing to support Kiev and insisting that decisions about the country’s fate should not be made without Ukraine’s input.
Still, although German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he discussed the U.S. plan with President Trump in a phone call on Friday and “agreed on the next steps at an advisory level,” the EU still appears largely in the cold.
The German government said that in a joint telephone conversation with Zelenskiy early Friday, Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer “agreed to continue pursuing the goal of safeguarding the vital interests of Europe and Ukraine in the long term.”
This includes “ensuring that the Line of Contact is the starting point of understanding and that the Ukrainian military can continue to effectively defend Ukraine’s sovereignty,” the statement said, and said it differed from a U.S. proposal that called for Ukraine to withdraw from parts of its territory.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a post on X that European leaders will meet on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Johannesburg on Saturday to discuss the proposal.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said G20 discussions would focus on “how we can strengthen this plan for the next stage of negotiations”.
“There is only one country that is not calling for a ceasefire around the G20 table, and there is only one country that is using a barrage of drones and missiles to destroy lives and kill innocent civilians,” Starmer said. “Russia has repeatedly pretended to be serious about peace, but its actions never match its words.”
President Trump appears to be giving Russia just about everything it wants, and much of its language resembles the extremist positions Russia took at the Istanbul meeting in 2022, shortly after the invasion, when Russian forces were occupying more of Ukraine.
Like the proposal developed by the Trump administration that led to the ceasefire in Gaza, the Ukraine plan is like a bullet point list, listing commitments that both sides would make to permanently end the conflict.
Ukraine’s plan, seen by CNN, calls for a cessation of fighting, global funding for reconstruction, and a council led by the US president to oversee the commitments. The authenticity of the draft plan was confirmed by US officials.
Many of the ideas proposed in the 28-point plan have been rejected in previous negotiations.
Under this plan, Russian-occupied Crimea, Luhansk, and Donetsk would be recognized as “de facto Russia, including the United States,” but this had been a red line for Kiev to cross until now.
The plan calls for Ukrainian forces to withdraw from the areas they currently control in eastern Donetsk, “and this withdrawal zone would be considered a neutral demilitarized buffer zone and internationally recognized as territory belonging to the Russian Federation.”
The draft plan states that Ukraine will not join NATO, that NATO will not station troops in Ukraine, that the size of the Ukrainian army be limited to 600,000, and that Ukrainian elections be held within 100 days, which would be extremely difficult to organize.
It also outlines Russia’s return to the global economy, including lifting sanctions and inviting it back to the G8.
In a Fox News interview on Friday, President Trump said that even though the plan appears to offer significant concessions to Russia, President Putin “doesn’t want another war” and is “punished.”
Zelenskiy said he would work around the clock to move the plan forward, but said he had no intention of betraying his country.
“I’m going to present arguments, I’m going to persuade, I’m going to present alternatives, but I’m not going to give our adversaries any reason to say that Ukraine doesn’t want peace, that we’re obstructing the process, that Ukraine isn’t ready for diplomacy,” Zelenskiy continued.
This story has been updated. CNN’s Samantha Woldenberg, Jennifer Hansler, Darya Tarasova, Kevin Liptak and Natasha Bertrand contributed to this report.
