Amid the relentless grind of the nearly four-year-old war in Ukraine, a flurry of diplomatic activity has reignited cautious hopes—and deep skepticism—about the prospects for peace. Over the past week, Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump have edged closer to what some observers describe as the most substantive negotiations since the conflict began, yet the underlying realities on the ground and at the negotiating table suggest that a final settlement remains elusive.
On November 27, 2025, during a state visit to Kyrgyzstan, Putin publicly expressed optimism about a draft United States-backed peace plan for Ukraine. According to Reuters, he said the proposal "could serve as the basis for future agreements," though he quickly tempered expectations by noting that "some issues still needed to be hammered out." This guarded endorsement echoed remarks he made days earlier, when he told his Security Council that the text of the U.S. plan "has not been discussed with us in detail."
The U.S. initiative, which began as a 28-point proposal, has been at the center of recent talks. President Trump, projecting hope, ordered his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, to travel to Moscow the week of November 28 to present the plan directly to Putin. The original proposal, widely seen as favorable to Russian interests, called for significant Ukrainian territorial concessions and the abandonment of Kyiv’s NATO ambitions. According to ABC News, the plan was revised down to 19 points during negotiations in Geneva on November 23, with some of the most contentious provisions—such as a cap on Ukraine’s army and a general war crimes amnesty—removed at Ukraine’s insistence.
Still, the revised plan’s full details remain under wraps. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, confirmed that U.S. and Ukrainian officials would continue working on the proposal at the end of the week, aiming to refine a formula that could end the war and provide security guarantees for Kyiv. In his nightly address, Zelenskyy assured Ukrainians that their delegation "will be well prepared and focused on meaningful work."
Yet, for all the diplomatic choreography, a hard reality persists: the two sides remain far apart on the most intractable issues. Putin has insisted that any agreement must acknowledge Russia’s territorial gains—roughly 44,600 square miles, or about 20% of Ukraine’s territory, according to the Institute for the Study of War—and be accepted by the international community. He has also demanded that Ukrainian troops withdraw from Russian-controlled territories, warning, "If they don’t leave, then we shall achieve this by armed means. That’s it." As Al Jazeera reported, Putin’s remarks underscore a willingness to keep fighting if Ukraine refuses to cede ground.
The battlefield situation only reinforces Putin’s hand. Since the August 2025 summit between Trump and Putin in Alaska, Russian forces have captured approximately 350 square miles of additional Ukrainian territory. Relentless drone and missile strikes have devastated Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, causing rolling blackouts in cities including Kyiv as winter sets in. These attacks, coupled with a corruption scandal that saw two Ukrainian cabinet ministers removed in November, have left Zelenskyy’s government reeling and public morale under strain.
Despite the mounting toll, Ukrainian officials remain deeply skeptical of Russia’s intentions. Many in Kyiv view Putin’s statements as little more than a stalling tactic, designed to buy time while Russian troops consolidate their gains. Tatiana Stoyanova, founder of R.Politik and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, wrote on X that Putin "feels more confident than ever about the battlefield situation and is convinced that he can wait until Kyiv finally accepts that it cannot win and must negotiate on Russia's well-known terms."
Former Russian diplomat Boris Bondarev, who resigned in protest after the 2022 invasion, echoed this sentiment in an interview with ABC News. He described the latest round of negotiations as likely to "fizzle out with the combatants still far apart on key issues," noting that even the U.S.-drafted blueprint "wasn't fully acceptable to Russia in the first place." Bondarev suggested that, unless the plan meets most of Putin’s demands, "they would not accept it." Still, he warned that the Kremlin can be unpredictable, saying, "We should be ready for any surprises from the Kremlin. They can still surprise sometimes."
On the Ukrainian side, lawmakers have drawn their own red lines. Yehor Cherniev, chair of Ukraine’s NATO Parliamentary Assembly delegation, told ABC News that while the framework established with the U.S. is "good progress in our peace negotiations," Kyiv will not compromise on the concession of territory or sovereignty. Another parliamentarian, Oleksandr Merezhko, was even more blunt: "Putin will reject this peace plan and will reiterate his maximalist demands. He is not interested in peace or ceasefire—he is only interested in our surrender. We should insist not on a 'peace treaty' but on a ceasefire agreement."
Meanwhile, the U.S. approach has drawn criticism for its perceived flexibility toward Moscow. John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, argued at an Atlantic Council event that "Putin does not want an agreement. The only agreement he wants is diktat—a Ukrainian surrender. Otherwise, he wants to continue fighting." He suggested that if Ukraine had accepted the original 28-point plan, Putin would likely have "come back for more." Daniel Fried, a former U.S. ambassador to Poland, added that Trump would need to "stare down Putin to get his deal in any kind of decent form." But Bondarev was skeptical, remarking that any disunity within the Trump administration "will only further strengthen Moscow’s hand."
Despite these challenges, there is a sense that the new U.S. push has at least broken a diplomatic stalemate. Samuel Charap, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, told ABC News that "there are conversations happening that weren't happening a week ago." He cautioned, however, that "even in the best case we are talking about months not weeks" before any agreement could be reached.
Adding to the tension, on November 27 a Russian military court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced eight men to life imprisonment for their alleged involvement in a 2022 truck bomb attack on the bridge linking southern Russia to Russian-annexed Crimea. The bridge, a symbol of Moscow’s 2014 seizure of Crimea, has been a flashpoint in the conflict. The defendants maintained their innocence, but the verdict was seen by many as a reminder of the deep animosities fueling the war.
As the diplomatic dance continues, both sides appear to be playing for time—each hoping to improve its position, either on the battlefield or at the negotiating table. For now, the prospect of an imminent peace remains distant, shaped as much by hard realities as by the shifting winds of international diplomacy.