Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky unveiled a 20-point peace plan on Tuesday, December 23, developed with the United States, breaking with a first version from October which would have forced Ukraine to cede territories and renounce all membership in NATO. Presented as a “reasonable compromise” in the face of the plan supported by Moscow and the Trump administration, the new text includes security guarantees demanded by kyiv as well as a reconstruction program.
But for a Kremlin driven by its advances on the front, the plan is far from acceptable. “This is absolute mockery,” Aleksei Naumov, an international affairs analyst based in Moscow, has already reacted on Telegram. According to him “the idea is clear: present this to the Americans as a ‘compromise’, then blame Russia in the event of failure”.
What’s blocking?
Over the past few months, Russian red lines have remained more or less the same: the intransigent Kremlin is still demanding the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from Donetsk and Luhansk, and a definitive exclusion from its potential NATO membership. If Vladimir Putin spoke this week of possible “concessions”, potentially by abandoning certain occupied areas in Kharkiv or Zaporizhia, Moscow intends to continue the fighting to take the entirety of Donetsk.
This is therefore always where the negotiations stumble: the Ukrainian plan this time requires the withdrawal of Russian forces from several regions – Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, Sumy and Kharkiv. The proposal also specifies that Ukraine would withdraw its troops from areas of the Donetsk region that would be transformed into a demilitarized zone — but only if Russia withdrew its forces from an equivalent strip of territory.
Near the New York Times (NYT), Russian analyst Georgi Bovt believes that “the plan does not offer any compromise regarding the territories or the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant” regarding the plant currently occupied by Russian forces but which Ukraine would prefer to operate jointly with the United States. “The lack of resolution of the territorial question makes this an unacceptable proposition,” he said.
Why can Russia afford to refuse?
With high interest rates and sluggish growth, the Russian economy is certainly weakened by years of costly war, but it remains far from a collapse likely to force a change of course. “The Kremlin still seems to think that it can gain more by continuing the war” analyzes the American newspaper.
Russian advances on the ground are slow, but steady. Moscow currently controls about three-quarters of the Donetsk region, and could complete its conquest in 18 months at the current pace. Not to mention that 417,000 recruits have signed new contracts with the Russian army in 2025, according to Dmitri Medvedev, which allows the Kremlin to continue the conflict despite heavy losses.
For the NOWMoscow continues to negotiate above all for tactical reasons: preserving a working relationship with Washington, avoiding taking sole responsibility for the diplomatic failure and delaying new American sanctions, in particular. Particularly after those imposed in October by Donald Trump against the two Russian oil giants Rosneft et I locked it. For Ukrainian analyst Volodymyr Fessenko cited by the NOW, The Kremlin’s position is clear: “Putin has no intention of ending the war” and is using the talks as diplomatic leverage rather than a path to peace.
