US President Donald Trump has given Ukraine less than a week to accept his plan – widely seen as favoring Russia – to end the war, as President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country faced “one of the most difficult moments” in its history.
“I’ve had a lot of deadlines, but if things are working well, you tend to extend the deadlines. But Thursday is it,” the president said in a radio interview with Fox News.
The 28-point plan put forward by Trump puts pressure on Kyiv to cede territory, limit the size of its military and promise not to join NATO in exchange for an end to the war, all long-standing Kremlin demands.
It was characterized by Zelensky during a video address to the nation on Friday as presenting Ukraine with a choice between losing its dignity or a key ally.
Speaking from the Oval later in the day, Trump said he was confident the plan was a “way of getting peace” but said it still needed Zelensky’s approval. However, he suggested Zelensky had little choice but to accept.
“He’ll have to like it. And if he doesn’t like it then they should just keep fighting I guess,” Trump told reporters.
Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin told a security council briefing he had received the US proposal and that he believed it “could form the basis of a final peace settlement.”
The Russian president said he was ready to “show the flexibility” that was agreed upon during the summit with Trump in Alaska this August, but added that Russia had not “substantively” discussed the deal with the US.
‘A very difficult choice’
In his video address, Zelensky said, “The pressure on Ukraine is now at its most intense. Ukraine may now face a very difficult choice: either the loss of dignity, or the risk of losing a key partner, or 28 difficult points, or an extremely harsh winter.”
Ukraine would “work calmly” and quickly with the US and its partners towards an end to the war, Zelensky said. Zelensky spoke with US Vice President JD Vance on Friday about the plan.
A number of European leaders have spoken out in support of Ukraine since the details of Trump’s proposal were released, vowing to stand by Kyiv and insisting that no decisions should be made about the fate of the country without its input.
Still, the EU appears to have been left largely out in the cold, though German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he and Trump discussed the US plan in a phone call Friday and “agreed on the next steps at the advisers’ level.”
In a joint call with Zelensky earlier Friday, Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer “agreed to continue to pursue the goal of safeguarding vital European and Ukrainian interests in the long term,” according to the German government.
This includes “ensuring that the line of contact is the starting point for an understanding and that the Ukrainian armed forces remain capable of effectively defending Ukraine’s sovereignty,” it said in a statement, differing from the US proposal which calls for Ukraine to withdraw from some of its own territory.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a post on X that European leaders would meet on Saturday on the margins of the G20 summit in Johannesburg to discuss the proposal.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that the discussion at G20 would focus on “how we can strengthen this plan for the next phase of negotiations.”
CNN
