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President Donald Trump’s administration is quietly assembling a 28-point proposal aimed at ending the Russia-Ukraine war, a framework developed with Russian input and organized around the four themes of halting hostilities, establishing postwar security arrangements, improving broader European stability, and redefining U.S. relations with both Moscow and Kyiv.
According to officials familiar with the effort, the plan draws partly from Trump’s recent Gaza cease-fire initiative. It reflects understandings discussed during Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska in August. Details involving control of eastern Ukrainian territory now held by Russian forces have not been released.
Special Envoy Steve Witkoff is directing the talks and has been in communication with Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and a key diplomatic channel on Ukraine. Dmitriev met with Witkoff and other Trump advisers in Miami from October 24 to 26, describing the discussions as constructive and centered on Russia’s security needs and a potential reset in U.S.-Russia relations.
A White House spokesperson said President Trump believes a durable settlement is possible if all sides are willing to compromise. The administration is working to complete a formal document ahead of the president’s next scheduled engagement with Putin.
The plan has reportedly come as a surprise to some GOP lawmakers.
“I don’t know what this 28-point plan is. I’m glad that we’re coming up with a plan,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a Trump ally and staunch supporter of Ukraine, said Wednesday, according to The Hill.
“I have not been read in on the details of that,” Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation, added.
The news comes just weeks after the Trump administration announced new sanctions on Russia’s two biggest oil companies, saying the move is aimed at pressuring Moscow to end its war in Ukraine after diplomatic efforts stalled.
The Treasury Department said the sanctions target Open Joint Stock Company Rosneft Oil Company and Lukoil OAO, two of Russia’s largest energy producers, according to The Hill.
“I just felt it was time. We waited a long time. I thought that we’d go long before the Middle East,” President Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, where he appeared alongside NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
“It’s a very big day in terms of what we’re doing,” President Trump said. “These are tremendous sanctions. They’re big, these are against their two big oil companies and we hope they won’t be on for long. We hope that the war will be settled. We just answered having to do with various forms of missiles and everything else that we’re looking at, but we don’t think that’s going to be necessary.”
