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. CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.
Addressing the nation via video on Friday, Zelensky said the US plan for ending the war would mean his country losing its dignity or a key ally.
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.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told a security council briefing late Friday that he had received the US-proposed plan for Ukraine and that he believes 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.
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. “We have agreed on the next steps at the advisers’ level. I will now brief the European partners,” Merz said on X.
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 “there should be nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine,” adding that European leaders would meet on Saturday on the margins of the G20 summit in Johannesburg to discuss the proposal.
Zelensky: I will not betray Ukraine
Trump appears to be giving Russia almost everything it wants, with much of the text resembling the maximalist positions Moscow held during talks in Istanbul in 2022, shortly after the invasion and when its forces held more of Ukraine.
Like the proposal the Trump administration crafted which led to the ceasefire in Gaza, the Ukraine plan reads as bullet-pointed list, laying out commitments each side would make in order to drive a lasting end to the conflict.
The Ukraine plan – which has been seen by CNN – calls for a halt to fighting, global funding for reconstruction and a board overseeing the commitments led by the US president. The draft plan’s veracity was confirmed by a US official.
Many of the ideas put forward in the 28-point plan have been rejected in previous negotiations.
The plan would have Russia-occupied Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk be recognized “as de facto Russian, including by the United States,” a previous red line for Kyiv.
The plan calls for Ukrainian forces to withdraw from the parts of eastern Donetsk that they currently control, “and this withdrawal zone will be considered a neutral demilitarized buffer zone, internationally recognized as territory belonging to the Russian Federation.”
The draft plan includes a commitment that Ukraine will not join NATO, that NATO will not station troops in Ukraine, limits the size of the Ukrainian armed forces to 600,000 personnel and calls for Ukrainian elections within 100 days – something that would be extremely challenging to organize.
It also outlines a return of Russia into the global economy, including the lifting of sanctions and an invitation to rejoin the G8.
In the Fox News interview on Friday, Trump said that Putin is “not looking for more war” and is “taking punishment,” despite the plan appearing to offer major concessions to Russia.
Zelensky said that he would work around the clock to find a path forward on the plan, while saying he would not betray his country.
“I will present arguments, I will persuade, I will offer alternatives, but we will definitely not give the enemy any reason to say that Ukraine does not want peace, that it is disrupting the process, and that Ukraine is not ready for diplomacy,” Zelensky continued.
This story has been updated. CNN’s Samantha Waldenberg, Jennifer Hansler, Darya Tarasova, Kevin Liptak and Natasha Bertrand contributed to this report.