This is a mealy-mouthed headline on a pretty good summary article:President Zelenskyy said after a call with US Vice President JD Vance that Ukraine agreed to work with the US and Europe towards a peace plan with Russia. Earlier he told the country it faces one of its most difficult moments as it weighs a US proposal that gives major concessions to Russia.
— Al Jazeera English (@aljazeera.com) November 21, 2025 at 2:21 PM
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Mark MacKinnon / The Globe and Mail
U.S. peace plan for Ukraine bears strong resemblance to Putin’s termsAnd Whitkoff is showing himself to be just Putin's stenographer:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky faces a fraught, historic choice in the form of a 28-point peace plan proposed by the United States and Russia: He can accept a deal that looks to many Ukrainians like surrender, or he and his country can continue to fight a war they are slowly losing.
Expect Mr. Zelensky and his country to do the latter, even in the face of U.S. President Donald Trump’s reported threat to cut the flow of U.S. weapons and intelligence to Ukraine if Kyiv doesn’t accept the peace plan. If Mr. Zelensky unexpectedly bows to the pressure, expect Ukrainians to take to the streets – as they have so often done – to force him from office.
Mr. Zelensky acknowledged Friday that the almost four-year-old war for his country had reached a potentially decisive moment.
“This is one of the most difficult moments in our history,” he said in a video address. “Ukraine may now face a very difficult choice: either losing its dignity or the risk of losing a key partner.”
...It’s now clear that the plan – formulated by Mr. Trump’s personal envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Kirill Dmitriev, a businessman close to Russian President Vladimir Putin – has much in common with the surrender terms Mr. Putin offered to Mr. Zelensky almost four years ago, at the start of the Russian invasion.
Kyiv would concede territory, agree to a cap on the size of its military and promise to never join NATO. Russia would get U.S. recognition of its hold on the occupied Ukrainian regions of Crimea and Donbas and an end to international sanctions. It would even get to rejoin the G7, which would again become the G8.
There’s also a clause that says all parties will receive “full amnesty for their actions during the war” – though it’s unclear how or why the International Criminal Court would drop its warrant for Mr. Putin’s arrest on war crimes charges.
The Kremlin’s line Friday was that there is nothing to discuss. “The Russian military’s effective work should convince Zelensky and his regime that it’s better to strike a deal and do it now,” Mr. Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said Friday.
The Witkoff-Dmitriev proposal has the same take-this-or-face-destruction tone that marked the ceasefire deal Mr. Witkoff successfully negotiated between Israel and Hamas. It even includes another “peace council” – to be headed by the Nobel Peace Prize-seeking Mr. Trump, of course – that is supposed to monitor and guarantee the end of the war.
The difference, of course, is that Ukraine is not Gaza – the war is not yet lost. Yes, tens of thousands of Ukrainians have died, and entire cities lie in ruins. The Ukrainian military is also facing a front-line situation that looks as bad as any time since the early weeks of the war. The fall of two key cities – Pokrovsk and Kupyansk – seems imminent.
That’s the bad news. The flipside is that the Russian capture of Pokrovsk and Kupyansk was predicted more than a year ago. The fact that it has taken the mighty Russian army 15 months to capture those two relatively minor centres highlights how much better Ukraine’s position is now compared with February and March of 2022, when Russian tanks were on the outskirts of Kyiv and Kharkiv.
If Mr. Zelensky didn’t accept Moscow’s surrender terms then, why would he now, when the Russian army is hundreds of kilometres further from Kyiv and Ukraine has the full backing of Europe and Canada to continue the fight?...
The world is appalled by the Trump "peace deal", but not surprised:More evidence that the Trump/Witkoff “peace plan” for Ukraine came straight from the Russians - it uses Russian syntax. www.theguardian.com/world/live/2...
— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) November 21, 2025 at 9:58 AM
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Now that the Republican house and senate members finally broke away from Trump over the Epstein papers, maybe they're getting a spine back:With his ultimatum that Ukraine surrender to Russia, Trump finally wins a prize: The Neville Chamberlain award for betraying peace, freedom, and justice.
— Hillary Rodham Clinton (@hillaryclinton.bsky.social) November 21, 2025 at 5:49 PM
Phillips O'Brien has been writing about the Russia-Ukraine war since it began:BREAKING: Republican Senator Roger Wicker, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, attacks Trump’s “peace plan” to end the Ukraine war: “Ukraine should not be forced to give up its lands to one of the world’s most flagrant war criminals in Vladimir Putin.”
— Republicans Against Trumpism (@rpsagainsttrump.bsky.social) November 21, 2025 at 5:12 PM
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Adam L Silverman / Balloon JuiceHere is Trump's full 28 point plan for Ukraine. It would destroy Ukraine as a sovereign state and leave it helpless to face a Russian attack in the future. It would also give Putin full vindication and immunity from prosecution. www.axios.com/2025/11/20/t...
— Phillips OBrien (@phillipspobrien.bsky.social) November 20, 2025 at 7:41 PM
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War for Ukraine Day 1,366: Someone Isn’t Playing with a Full Deck of Cards & It’s Not ZelenskyySilverman also posted this tweet:
...Quite simply, the Ukrainians hold far more cards right now that they did even back in early 2025 when Trump unleashed the Vice President of a Thousand Names on President Zelenskyy. The pace of Ukrainian weapons development, innovation, and production dwarfs anything and everything that the US defense industrial base could produce if its collective ass was on fire and its collective head was catching. The real purpose behind Secretary of the Army Driscoll’s trip to Ukraine yesterday was to gain access to Ukraine’s defense industrial base. And that’s not counting on what Ukraine’s attacks on Russia’s petroleum infrastructure has done. Almost all of it accomplished with Ukrainian made weapons and munitions, NOT AMERICAN!!!!
As for just keep fighting, I expect that’s what the Ukrainians will do.
Reading recently of the success Ukraine was having with its drone attacks on Russia, I had wondered if these would finally force Russia to take Ukraine seriously. Maybe the so-called peace plan is actually that response - Putin has realized that he can bully Trump much more easily than he can ever defeat Zelenskeyy.Things that make you go "Hmmm..." After nearly 12 years of grinding war, the Kremlin and the White House are in a sudden rush to force Ukraine to surrender, just as Ukraine's domestically produced "long-range" weapons systems start to come online. www.uawire.org/later-will-b...
— Euan MacDonald (@euanmacdonald.bsky.social) November 21, 2025 at 2:36 PM
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This is not a plan. It is maybe a concept of a plan. It would take a year or more to develop it into a plan. The summaries of meetings I had with Russians that everyone had to sign were more tightly written than this. The agreement with my realtor was tighter than this.
— Cheryl Rofer (@cherylrofer.bsky.social) November 20, 2025 at 8:03 PM
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Landsbergis is the former PM of LithuaniaPut someone in who knows how to do this stuff. Witkoff, once again, is an embarrassment.
— Cheryl Rofer (@cherylrofer.bsky.social) November 20, 2025 at 8:05 PM
Completely agree. The fates of Ukraine and Europe are linked. European security system will be destroyed without Ukraine.
— Anton Gerashchenko (@antongerashchenko.bsky.social) November 21, 2025 at 11:09 AM
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At the G20, Ukraine’s allies will discuss a controversial US peace plan - leaked as favoring russia - amid Kyiv’s resistance. #Zelenskyy warns of pressure, while Europe expresses concern over terms like ceding territory and no NATO membership. Leaders seek a “just peace.”
— Eugene McParland 🇺🇦 (@eugenemcparland.bsky.social) November 21, 2025 at 11:44 PM
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Here's how Ukraine keeps its courage up:Together with @eucopresident.consilium.europa.eu, we have spoken to President Zelenskyy. From day one, Europe has stood with Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression. We have been working for a just and sustainable peace with Ukraine and for Ukraine together with our friends and partners.
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen.ec.europa.eu) November 21, 2025 at 11:31 AM
While clearing the rubble of a building in Ternopil, that was ruined by Russian attack, rescuers found this poor scared cat. He is reunited with his human. 🐈⬛️
— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) November 21, 2025 at 8:39 AM
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4 comments:
All the above rhetoric ignores the fact that NATO expansion looks just like Napoleon and Hitler to the Russians.
The CIA-sponsored coup in 2014 had one extremely predictable outcome: Russia would annex the Russian-ethic-enclave, Crimea, to preserve their only warm water naval base.
The subsequent NATO shenanigans (and crap like Hunter Biden's get rich quick schemes) had its own predictable results.
Americans (Goldman Sacks etc) helped create the monster Putin and the oligarch class in Russia. Karma is a bitch.
I think NATO expansion isn't happening no matter if Europe wants it - Biden didn't want it, neither does Trump, and who knows if there will be another president in 2028. That said, Europe and Canada are stepping up in terms of providing arms to Ukraine anyway, and it feels like Putin doesn't want a shooting war with France and England and Poland. I don't know much about the last 30 years of history in Russia or Ukraine, except to feel generally that if Putin wants something, its likely not good for Europe or the world.
Well, the bottom line is this: Maybe Ukraine will agree to something like this now. Or, maybe they will keep fighting for another year and agree to something like this then, except maybe with Odessa added in. The main difference will be the number of dead, and the country being that much more destroyed.
The whole point for the Russians has been no Ukraine in NATO and no NATO in Ukraine, both in theory and de facto. Not like before the war, when NATO armed Ukraine to the teeth and funded the growth of their army to by far the biggest in Europe. The Russians don't trust NATO, because the US routinely considers treaties pieces of paper to be ignored, and top European leaders came out and said that they considered the Minsk agreements to be ways to fob Russia off while they armed Ukraine. So whatever solution is reached, the Russians will insist that it is not just the US and Europe SAYING they won't use Ukraine against Russia again, but instead has safeguards to make sure they CAN'T, no matter how treacherous their intentions might be. It's hard to avoid that including a requirement that the Ukrainian army stays small. The only way not to have that kind of condition would be to defeat Russia in the war. But NATO is not going to win the war, so it will continue until someone agrees to that kind of condition.
Many may be outraged that I'm basing this analysis on the idea that Russia sees NATO as treacherous. But we ARE treacherous. Our whole deal since the end of the Cold War has been, we're so powerful now we don't have to keep our word. Abiding by the terms of treaties became a thing for the little people, not for the US or the EU or Israel. So now if someone has the ability to push us into a deal that we don't dictate, they're going to make sure it doesn't depend on our honesty to work.
This is long and detailed. It is very much worth listening to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4wLXNydzeY
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