The Ukrainian daily Strana published leaked details of President Trump’s alleged ‘100 Day’ Ukraine peace plan. It envisions ending the war in a few months and has supposedly been discussed in the highest “political and diplomatic circles” of Kyiv.
While the details of the plan cannot be independently verified and Kyiv denies its existence, the leaks’ strong ‘America First’ approach may suggest that Trump’s official peace plan will end up being something similar to it.
According to the Ukrainian journal, the plan details a comprehensive negotiating process to end the war before the summer. It starts with a phone call between Trump and Putin in late January or early February, followed by a Putin-Zelensky summit in February or March, and declaring an initial ceasefire by Easter Sunday, April 20th.
Under the ideal terms of the ceasefire, fighting would be frozen along the frontlines and Ukrainian troops would have to withdraw from their occupied territories in Kursk, inside Russia.
An ‘International Peace Conference’ would then begin under the mediation of global powers, such as the U.S., China, and maybe even Turkey, as it was heavily involved in the initial peace process in March and April of 2022. Based on the leaked details, the following peace agreement is supposed to be finalized by May 9th—a little over a hundred days after Trump’s inauguration—on which day martial law, including mobilization, would end in Ukraine.
The exact details of the peace agreement would have to be worked out with Ukraine and during the conference, but the leaked plan includes Trump’s alleged proposals.
According to Strana, Ukraine would have to declare neutrality and give up its NATO membership aspirations but would receive guarantees that it would become a full EU member by 2030 and that Europe would take care of the country’s postwar reconstruction. Ukraine would be able to maintain its current army and would continue to receive U.S. military support as a deterrence from future Russian aggression, but would have to recognize Russian sovereignty over its occupied territories and give up on any attempts to reclaim them in the future.
Additionally, the alleged plan proposes a gradual lifting of Western sanctions on Russia over three years, starting with the restrictions on importing Russian energy. However, “special duties” would be imposed on Russian oil and gas imports, with the funding going toward Ukraine’s restoration. Reportedly, the plan also calls for allowing pro-peace political parties within Ukraine to participate in the democratic discourse and elections again, as well as holding a separate consultation about the deployment of an international peacekeeping force in Ukraine.
President Zelensky’s office denied the authenticity of the leaks and insisted that his administration sticks to his earlier ‘Victory Plan’ which includes restoring the country’s full territorial integrity, guarantees of both NATO and EU membership, and prosecuting Putin and other Kremlin officials for war crimes. Washington and Moscow did not comment on the leaked plans either.
But suppose for a moment that the war will end, sooner or later, with a similar agreement. Ukraine wins by acquiring EU membership and endless U.S. military support. Russia wins by keeping the occupied territories and preventing further NATO encroachment on its borders. The U.S. wins by continuing to sell more arms than ever both to Ukraine and Europe, while also keeping the latter mostly dependent on American energy supplies.
Europe however, is left to finance most of the reconstruction—the cost of which is estimated to be over half a trillion euros, although frozen Russian assets may help—as well as to integrate the giant, war-torn country in itself by the end of the decade, after which virtually all EU countries would become net contributors to the EU budget just to sustain Ukraine’s membership.
EU leaders in Brussels would have no problem with this of course. They’ve been advocating for giving Ukraine EU membership by 2030 ever since the war started. That’s partly because it would also mean there would be a reason for massive EU reforms essentially ending member state sovereignty once and for all—often presented as absolutely necessary to sustain a Union with more member states.
If this turns out to be the path to peace, it could have been negotiated sooner, as the frontlines barely changed in the past two years, yet tens of thousands more died.
