President Donald Trump has delivered a “dire” ultimatum to Ukraine after Volodymyr Zelensky forcefully rejected his proposed peace plan.
Trump’s peace plan, which was crafted with input from Trump’s envoy General Keith Kellogg, would require Ukraine to make sweeping territorial concessions.
Under the proposal, Kyiv would hand over Crimea and large portions of Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk, and Zaporizhia to Russia. In return, Ukraine would retain access to the Dnipro River and a northern slice of Kherson, while the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant would be placed under U.S. administration.
But Zelensky refused to even entertain the plan, and described it as a violation of Ukraine’s legal and territorial integrity.
“There is nothing to talk about. This violates our Constitution,” he said, according to Al Jazeera. “This is our territory – the territory of the people of Ukraine.”
Zelensky warned that accepting such a plan would only embolden Moscow: “As soon as talks about Crimea and our sovereign territories begin, the talks enter the format that Russia wants – prolonging the war – because it will not be possible to agree on everything quickly.”
Despite the backlash in Kyiv, Trump’s allies are continuing to push the initiative.
Steve Witkoff is expected to travel to Moscow to present the plan to Russian President Vladimir Putin directly, while General Kellogg leads the American delegation after top-level peace talks in London were downgraded.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio pulled out to head to Moscow instead, and Vice President JD Vance, speaking from India, issued a blunt warning: “It’s time for them to either say yes or for the United States to walk away from this process,”
Zelenskyy, however, reiterated Ukraine’s position on peace on Telegram: “Ukraine has repeatedly said that it does not exclude any of the formats that can lead to a ceasefire and further to real peace. Stopping the killings is the number one task.”
But his red lines remain unchanged: no surrender of territory, no forced neutrality, and no erasure of Ukraine’s suffering.
The French presidency backed Kyiv’s stance, stating any peace agreement must include full respect for Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty.