Ukraine to Share Revised Peace Plan with Washington Today
After a London meeting with leaders from Britain, France and Germany, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine will send a revised 20 point peace plan to the United States for review, a development that could reshape Western diplomacy on the war. The move matters because it highlights growing transatlantic pressure for a negotiated settlement while exposing deep divisions over Ukraine retaining its territory and the use of frozen Russian assets.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy emerged from talks in London on December 8 with Prime Minister Keir Starmer, President Emmanuel Macron and Chancellor Friedrich Merz with a pledge to forward a revised 20 point peace plan to the United States for review on Tuesday. The meeting, convened amid a renewed U.S. push for a negotiated settlement, underscored the fragile alignment among Kyiv, Washington and key European capitals over how to pursue an end to the conflict without surrendering Ukrainian land.
European leaders in the meeting emphasized coordination of a common response, Reuters reported, including talks about whether and how frozen Russian assets could be mobilized to support Ukraine in reconstruction and compensation. That idea has won attention in capitals from Warsaw to Paris as a pragmatic means to finance recovery, but it raises complex questions of international law, creditor rights and political equilibrium. Any reallocation of Russian state funds will face legal challenges and could complicate broader diplomatic efforts to maintain allied unity.
Zelenskiy has been unequivocal in rejecting any blueprint that would cede territory as a bargaining chip. His stance reflects deep domestic political reality and a principle rooted in international law that territorial changes resulting from armed aggression are impermissible. That position, however, collides with some Western calculations that a negotiated pause or settlement might require difficult concessions to secure immediate reductions in violence and guarantees for Ukraine in the future.
The decision to send a detailed plan to Washington signals Kyiv’s recognition of the United States central role in shaping the transatlantic approach to a settlement, including security guarantees and continued defense support. U.S. officials have been attentive to two aims that often pull in different directions, balancing a desire to avoid escalating the war with an imperative to preserve Ukraine’s sovereign integrity and its capacity to defend itself. The review in Washington is likely to influence subsequent European diplomacy and the messaging from NATO and the G7.
This diplomatic choreography highlights an enduring tension at the core of the war’s geopolitics. European capitals seek coordinated policy tools and financing mechanisms, while Ukraine seeks robust guarantees and weaponry that would allow it to negotiate from strength rather than desperation. Washington’s pressure for negotiations adds urgency to fragile talks, yet any compromise that appears to reward aggression would risk undermining the international legal order and emboldening other revisionist actors.
As the revised plan reaches U.S. hands, the next stage will test allied resolve and creative diplomacy. The choice for Kyiv and its partners is not merely about lines on a map, but about the precedent set for state sovereignty, accountability and the post war order in Europe and beyond.
