Germany Crucial days: What's in the Ukraine peace plan?
The struggle for a peace plan between Ukraine, its European allies and the USA is entering a decisive phase.
13.12.2025, 04:25
SDA
US special envoy Steve Witkoff is traveling to Berlin this weekend for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj and Europeans, a high-ranking US official confirmed to the German Press Agency. He did not provide further details on the exact timing or format of the meetings.
The German government had previously announced that Zelenskyi would meet with Chancellor Friedrich Merz, a number of European heads of state and government and the heads of the EU and NATO in Berlin on Monday. French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer are among those expected to attend.
Trump sees Ukraine at a military disadvantage
At the instigation of President Donald Trump, the US government presented a peace plan in November, which has since been negotiated in various rounds. Trump is demanding that Ukraine agree to a peace agreement. He sees the country, which is dependent on Western support, at a military disadvantage against the aggressor Russia.
In recent days, Trump has made US participation in new talks conditional on there being good prospects for real progress. The big question remains how Russia will react if a coordinated position is found in the US-Ukraine-Europe triangle.
The proposed solution for ending the Russian war of aggression, which has been going on for almost four years, is so far only known in outline. An overview:
The question of occupied Ukrainian territories
Most of this discussion has yet to reach the public. Moscow is insisting that the Ukrainian army vacate that part of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the eastern industrial area of Donbass that it still controls. Zelenskyi reported on a US compromise proposal to turn these territories into a "free economic zone" into which the Russian army would not be allowed to enter.
However, the Ukrainian president demanded that if his army had to withdraw, the Russians should do so too. He also reiterated that only the Ukrainian people could decide on the transfer of territory by referendum. Yuri Ushakov, foreign policy advisor to Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin, did not completely reject the proposal of a demilitarized territory, but said that the Russian National Guard and police should operate there. The Rosgvardiya National Guard is militarily organized and armed.
For southern Ukraine, the proposal seems to be to freeze the front line in the Zaporizhzhya and Kherson regions. Russia is being asked to vacate other occupied parts of the administrative regions of Sumy in the north, Kharkiv in the east and Dnipropetrovsk in the south.
Russia has annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea as well as the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson and is demanding full recognition under international law as part of its territory. A compromise could be that the USA and perhaps other countries recognize that Moscow controls part of Ukraine and that this should not be changed by force.
Security guarantees against further Russian aggression
It is crucial for Ukraine that it is not attacked again by Russia. The hoped-for accession to NATO as a security guarantee currently seems unattainable. Preventing this is one of Russia's war aims. But the USA and other NATO countries are also against it.
Nevertheless, there seems to be talk of security guarantees similar to the mutual assistance clause in Article 5 of the NATO treaty. The guarantors would be the USA and European countries. However, nothing is yet known about the conditions of this assistance. Ukraine's Western partners have also so far shied away from the risk of a military escalation with Russia; the question is whether this would be any different in the event of a further attack. From Ukraine's point of view, Putin's demand that Russia itself should be a guarantor power does not inspire much confidence.
EU membership instead of Nato troops?
Another consideration of the so-called coalition of the willing under British and French leadership has gone quiet recently - there has been virtually no talk of European security troops in or close to Ukraine. Russia strictly rejects troops from NATO countries in Ukraine anyway.
The most important protection for Ukraine is therefore likely to be its own well-armed army. There are rumors of a future upper limit of 800,000 soldiers, which would more or less fix the status quo in terms of numbers.
Such a limit contradicts Ukraine's sovereignty, which is asserted by all sides, and there are no known similar demands from Russia. However, the Ukrainian army would at least not be much smaller than at present and would be large for peacetime. Moscow, however, has always demanded much greater restrictions, with the originally discussed upper limit of 600,000 soldiers being unacceptable to Kiev.
Accelerating the country's accession to the European Union could also contribute to Ukraine's security. The Financial Times reported on an alleged move to admit the country as early as the beginning of 2027. There was no official confirmation of this. In order to take this step, the EU states would have to overcome at least one impending veto from Hungary - and come to terms with the fact that the EU would have a much longer border with Russia in the east in future.
Russian money as leverage for the EU
Frozen assets of the Russian central bank are an important European means of exerting pressure on Moscow. On Friday evening, the EU created an important basis for using this money for Ukraine. 25 of the 27 member states voted in favor of an indefinite ban on retransferring the money to Russia. Access to this money by the USA, as envisaged in the first version of the peace plan, is thus also off the table. Only Hungary and Slovakia voted against.
There is talk of 210 billion euros in the EU, of which 185 billion euros are stored in Belgium. The money is to be used for long-term loans to Ukraine. Russia is only to get it back if it pays reparations after the end of the war and makes full compensation.
Moscow is up in arms against these plans. But Belgium is also very skeptical about the use of the Russian money because it fears financial risks and Russian retaliatory measures. The EU heads of state and government want to find a solution before their summit meeting next week.
Washington and Kiev also discussed programs for the reconstruction of Ukraine and investments, but no details are known. The USA and Russia also discussed the resumption of economic contacts and a dialog on strategic arms issues.
