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By Shane Croucher and John Feng
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv is working with its partners in the "Coalition of the Willing" to draw up a peace plan, including a ceasefire, to end the Russian war against Ukraine in a similar vein to President Donald Trump's 20-point framework for Gaza.
Zelensky wants the plan to be short and light on details and said it would be worked on over the coming days, though he does not expect Russian President Vladimir Putin to accept it. "Some quick points," Zelensky told Axios of the plan in an interview published Monday morning. "Like a plan for a ceasefire. We decided we will work on it in the next week or ten days."
Peace in Ukraine has eluded Trump, who has spent months trying to broker at least a ceasefire, largely through diplomatic engagement with Moscow. But the Kremlin has instead dug in on its war goals, and even escalated its attacks, so no end to the war appears in sight.
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But Trump's early successes in Gaza—including the fragile truce between Hamas and Israel—provided momentum and a template for a ceasefire and a peace process in Ukraine. The conflicts have very different complexities, but Trump says he still believes he can make a deal to resolve the Russia-Ukraine crisis.
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Russia Rejects Ukraine Ceasefire
The Kremlin has repeatedly rejected calls for an immediate ceasefire, including the most recent appeal from Trump to halt the fighting along the current frontlines after his recent call with Putin. That rejection of a ceasefire killed off plans for an imminent meeting in Hungary between Trump and Putin.
The Ukrainian leader was in London last week to meet with "Coalition of the Willing" partners, including the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, among other Western powers. The coalition is a group of nations working on maintaining peace in Ukraine once the war is over, particularly by deploying peacekeeping troops under a security guarantee against future Russian aggression.
Kyiv has accused the Kremlin of stringing Trump along on peace as a delaying tactic, seeking to deter stronger action by the U.S. so it can improve its battlefield position. But Russia says Ukraine would use a ceasefire to regroup and resupply its forces for a continued fight.
Trump imposed fresh sanctions on Russia's two largest oil companies—Rosneft and Lukoil—for its rejection of a ceasefire, applying extra economic pressure on the Kremlin to make peace in Ukraine.
The two primary issues blocking peace are the division of land and the future architecture of Ukrainian security. Russia wants international recognition of the land it has seized from Ukraine, and also for Kyiv to hand over more territory. Moscow has also said North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) membership and the deployment of allied peacekeeping troops to Ukraine after the war are red lines.
Ukraine says Russia is waging an illegal war of conquest aimed at ending Ukrainian sovereignty and erasing its national identity.
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. It had earlier invaded eastern Ukraine, occupying swathes of territory, and annexed Crimea in 2014.
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