The Trump administration is secretly consulting with Russia on a new plan to end the conflict in Ukraine, American and Russian officials told Axios.
According to the media outlet, the new plan consists of 28 points, divided into four main categories: peace in Ukraine, security guarantees, security in Europe and future US relations with Russia and Ukraine. As Axios notes, it is not clear how territorial issues are addressed in this document.
A US representative told the portal that Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, is leading the development of the plan. He discussed the concept with Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund and special representative of the Russian president for investment and economic cooperation with foreign countries. In an interview with Axios, Dmitriev expressed optimism about the plan’s chances of success, stressing that “we feel that Russia’s position has really been heard.”
According to Dmitriev, the main idea was to take the principles that Trump and Putin agreed on during their meeting in Alaska in August and prepare a proposal “for resolving the conflict in Ukraine, as well as for restoring US-Russia relations and addressing Russia’s security concerns.” "In fact, it is a much broader concept that essentially says: 'How can we really, finally, ensure lasting security in Europe, not just in Ukraine,'" he said.
Dmitriev added that the goal is to have this document ready in time for the next meeting between Putin and Trump. He said Washington is currently explaining the "advantages" of its current approach to Ukrainians and Europeans.
A U.S. official confirmed that the U.S. is briefing European and Ukrainian officials about the new plan.
The Ukrainian official said that Vitkov had discussed the issue with the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, Rustem Umerov, earlier this week. "We know the Americans are working on something," he said.
The pause in Russian-American talks on Ukraine is due to the fact that the parties came out of the Alaska meeting with different understandings of what was agreed upon and what commitments each of them made, said Thomas Graham, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former assistant to the US president who was responsible for the strategic dialogue between the White House and the Kremlin.
„Therefore, when the idea of a new meeting arose and when Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, it became clear that there were disagreements about what should be done and what had been agreed upon. And therefore, the time for another meeting between the two presidents had not yet come,“ he explained to RBC.
According to Graham, the countries need to do a lot of preparatory work before the next summit, and this cannot happen quickly, so they have taken a break to decide on their next steps. “If you look at what is being said in the Kremlin and the White House, I think both sides still retain an element of optimism that they can resolve this conflict. "However, it will take a little more time and effort than both sides anticipated when we began this process many, many months ago," he stressed.
Graham suggested that the escalating corruption crisis in Ukraine would also prevent President Volodymyr Zelensky from focusing on other issues, including resolving the conflict.
“There are many unpredictable factors at this point, but it is absolutely clear that the corruption scandal will not stimulate more vigorous efforts to develop solutions to resolve the conflict with Russia,“ the former aide to the US president stressed.
Following the August 15 meeting between leaders Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in Alaska, the two sides said they had held a constructive dialogue but failed to reach concrete agreements on Ukraine. During a telephone conversation on October 16, the presidents agreed to hold another meeting in Budapest. Just a week later, however, Trump announced the cancellation of the talks, claiming that in the current situation it would be impossible to achieve the desired results. The Russian president said that approaching the meeting without preparation would be a mistake, as it would not lead to the expected results. Putin believes that the US president “is more likely talking about postponing this meeting“.
On November 11, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that before the phone call between the two leaders, the Russian side had handed over an unofficial memorandum to its American counterparts to remind them of what had been achieved since the Alaska summit. The Financial Times reported that it was this document that led to the cancellation of the meeting. Lavrov stressed that during the phone call, Trump "did not mention a word about being handed some provocative, subversive document that would destroy all hopes for an agreement."