American and Ukrainian officials have indicated that the 28-point peace plan initially announced by the United States is not final and is currently being changed. US President Donald Trump said on November 22 that the 28-point peace plan is not his final proposal to Ukraine.
This is written by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
The US special envoy for Ukraine, General Keith Kellogg, told Fox on November 23 that the peace plan is "a work in progress" and that there are issues that the parties need to codify and further explain.
Kellogg said that an annex document outlining security guarantees for Ukraine is likely needed. Kellogg said the United States does not want a repeat of the Budapest Memorandum or the Minsk agreements, Russia's preferred agreements that gave Ukraine vague security guarantees in return for Ukraine's nuclear disarmament in 1994, and the failed 2015 ceasefire protocol that greatly benefited Russia and led to a full-scale invasion in 2022.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that after meetings between the US, Ukraine and Europe on November 23 in Geneva, the peace plan was a dynamic document that was changing with new proposals every day.
Rubio added that the parties in Geneva "really moved forward" and that there is no specific deadline for Ukraine to sign the peace plan, saying the United States wants to finalize the deal "as soon as possible", even if that is after the original deadline of November 27.
The United States recognizes that Ukraine needs security guarantees as part of a peace agreement and that achieving peace "will require Ukraine to feel safe" from renewed invasions or attacks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said after the Geneva meetings that "a lot is changing" and that the talks would continue later on November 23.
The head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Andriy Yermak, who leads the newly formed Ukrainian negotiating delegation, said that the delegations would continue to work on November 23 and in the coming days to create a joint proposal between the United States, Ukraine and European allies.
Western reports also suggest that the United States is open to amending the peace plan, including points regarding the Ukrainian army and post-war security guarantees. "Washington Post" reported on November 22 that U.S. officials said the Trump administration acknowledged that the security guarantees in the original 28-point plan "are not yet strong enough."
U.S. officials reportedly said that U.S. President Donald Trump could increase or remove the 600,000-strong cap on the Ukrainian military or could consider supplying long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine in the event of a peace deal to strengthen post-war deterrence. The Washington Post reported that a U.S. official said the United States and U.S. allies would help Ukraine build a "wall" for security along the ceasefire line using unspecified advanced technology.
A US official said Zelensky had responded to the US peace proposal by suggesting a halt to strikes on energy infrastructure, but Russia then responded by calling such a ceasefire "impossible". European leaders are reportedly working on a counter-proposal to the original 28-point peace plan proposed by the US. Western media reported that France, the UK and Germany had drafted a counter-proposal before their talks with Ukrainian and US delegations in Geneva on 23 November.
The 24-point counter-proposal reportedly includes calls for an immediate ceasefire to precede discussions on territorial issues; a cap on Ukraine's military strength of 800,000 "in peacetime"; Ukraine to receive a security guarantee from the United States, similar to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); use of frozen Russian assets for full reparations and financial compensation to Ukraine; Ukraine's membership in NATO to be dependent on consensus among the alliance's members; and Ukraine to decide on the presence of foreign troops from guarantor states on Ukrainian territory. The Kremlin has already explicitly rejected a number of these proposals, including the deployment of foreign troops in post-war Ukraine.
Russian officials and ultranationalist voices have continued to reject every peace plan, including the initial 28-point plan proposed by the United States, which falls short of Russia's long-standing demands to destroy Ukrainian statehood and weaken NATO.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on November 22 that Russia could not deviate from Russian President Vladimir Putin's stated demands at the Alaska summit in August 2025 and reaffirmed Russia's commitment to addressing the "root causes" for the war.
Ryabkov also noted that Russia would continue to act in its national interests regardless of sanctions, signaling that the Kremlin would remain committed to its military efforts in Ukraine even in the face of potential future economic pressure on Russia.
At the Alaska summit, Putin remarkably demonstrated that he has not changed his views on Ukrainian sovereignty since 2021 and remains uninterested in serious peace talks with Ukraine. Ryabkov's repeated emphasis on the importance of eliminating the "root causes" on the war and Putin's stance at the Alaska summit further demonstrates that the Kremlin has not abandoned its original war aims and justifications, including the demand that NATO end its open door policy.
ISW continues to assess that Russian forces will very likely complete the capture of Pokrovsk and Mirnograd, although the timing and operational implications of these captures remain unclear at this time.
Russia will likely attempt to use Pokrovsk as a pretext for Russian battlefield victory. However, Russian battlefield victory is not inevitable, and it took Russian forces 21 months to advance some 40 kilometers. A campaign to capture the rest of Donetsk Oblast, including Ukraine's much larger and more populous fortress belt, would take several years of heavy fighting, and Russian forces have not demonstrated the ability to quickly surround, penetrate, or otherwise capture cities the size of those in the fortress belt since 2022.