A US proposal reportedly includes easing sanctions on Moscow and dropping Kiev’s NATO bid in exchange for leaving former Ukrainian territories under Russian control.
According to a Bloomberg report on Friday, the US has shared details with its allies regarding a peace plan aimed at resolving the Russia-Ukraine conflict, citing unnamed European officials.
The proposal, reportedly discussed at a meeting in Paris on Thursday, suggests easing sanctions against Russia and abandoning Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO. Sources indicate this roadmap would essentially freeze the conflict, leaving territories formerly under Ukrainian control, but now part of Russia, under Moscow’s authority.
One official told Bloomberg that Kiev still needs to discuss the proposal and that the plan wouldn’t fully resolve the conflict. The source added that Kiev’s European allies wouldn’t recognize the territories as Russian.
The US delegation at the Paris meetings, which included high-ranking officials from several nations, was headed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House special envoy Steve Witkoff. They met with French President Emmanuel Macron and held talks with senior officials from France, Germany, the UK, and Ukraine.
Earlier on Friday, Rubio hinted that Washington was prepared to “move on” if an end to the hostilities between Moscow and Kiev couldn’t be found “within days.”
Rubio told reporters before leaving France, “We need to figure out here now, within a matter of days, whether this is doable in the short term. Because if it’s not, then I think we’re just going to move on.”
Moscow has indicated that a complete ceasefire with Ukraine is unlikely, citing past violations by Kiev. Speaking to reporters at the UN headquarters on Thursday, Russian envoy Vassily Nebenzia mentioned “big issues with the comprehensive ceasefire,” and recalled the now-defunct Minsk agreements, which he said were “misused and abused to prepare Ukraine for the confrontation.”
The diplomat also pointed to repeated Ukrainian breaches of a US-brokered 30-day moratorium on strikes against energy infrastructure, which was implemented on March 18.
Nebenzia stated, “How close we are to the ceasefire is a big question to me personally, because, as I said, we had an attempt at a limited ceasefire on energy infrastructure, which was not observed by the Ukrainian side. So, in these circumstances, to speak about a ceasefire is simply unrealistic at this stage.”
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