Washington’s ‘Breakthrough’ on Ukraine Exposes Deep Fault Lines in Kyiv and Europe
European governments fear being shut out of core decisions on Ukraine’s future while bearing the long-term burden of reconstruction, security guarantees, and managing frozen Russian assets
As Washington races to sell its latest peace framework as a “breakthrough” in the war between Russia and Ukraine, the reality on the ground looks far less settled. The Trump administration’s 28-point plan—now reportedly cut to 19 points after a storm of criticism—has opened the most serious diplomatic track since the early months of the invasion. But it has also exposed a widening gap between US negotiators, Ukrainian red lines, and European concerns about both the terms of the deal and who gets to define them.
According to leaks and draft texts seen by multiple outlets, the original US plan was built around a hard trade-off: Kyiv would accept major territorial concessions—effectively recognizing Russian control over Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk and freezing front lines elsewhere—in exchange for US-backed security guarantees, a reconstruction package funded partly by frozen Russian assets, and a cap on the size of Ukraine’s armed forces. The proposal also barred Ukraine from joining NATO, limited foreign troops on its soil, and hinted at Russia’s gradual reintegration into global economic and political structures, including a path back to the G-8.
After fierce pushback from Kyiv and European capitals, a European counterproposal kept US security guarantees but removed explicit territorial concessions, raised the troop cap from 600,000 to 800,000, and dropped language that would permanently shut Ukraine out of NATO or grant Russia blanket amnesty for war crimes. US officials now speak of a refined 19-point framework with “stronger” guarantees for Ukraine. Still, the core tension remains: Washington is trying to engineer a ceasefire and long-term settlement while Russia continues offensive operations and publicly signals no intention of abandoning its maximalist aims.
Against this backdrop, three experts—Jason Jay Smart, an adviser on national security and geopolitics based in Kyiv; Cassia Scott-Jones, senior country risk analyst on Ukraine and Russia at Fitch Solutions; and Dr. Matteo Pugliese, a security expert and senior analyst at Debunk.org—outlined with The Media Line how Kyiv, Moscow and Brussels are really reading this moment.
For Ukraine, any talk of “breakthrough” starts and ends with what survives on paper once the ink dries.
Laying out Kyiv’s minimum conditions, Cassia Scott-Jones told The Media Line that a negotiated settlement needs to uphold three foundational red lines, the first of which is that Ukraine must receive credible security guarantees from allies that can genuinely deter future Russian aggression. Secondly, Ukraine must retain a large standing army, layered defenses, and long-range strike capabilities, and thirdly, any ‘Donetsk-for-peace’ type territorial concession is only conceivable if it comes with reciprocal Russian commitments and binding mechanisms to prevent escalation beyond a new frontline.
According to Scott-Jones, this approach “aligns with the EU’s ‘indigestible steel porcupine’ model, which would turn Ukraine into a hard target that imposes unsustainable attrition on Russian forces.”
Commenting on the revised framework, Scott-Jones said that it is rumored to include more binding and credible security guarantees for Ukraine, but a lasting peace remains unlikely because of Russian resistance.
“The Kremlin has praised Trump’s foreign policy, yet Russian domestic messaging is a better barometer of peace prospects. When the US proposal was raised at the Russian Security Council on Nov. 21, Putin again spoke about addressing the ‘root causes’ of the war, a well-known euphemism for Moscow’s maximalist demands,” she said.
Scott-Jones noted that the key compromises so far have taken place between Kyiv and Washington, not Kyiv and Moscow. Washington accepted Ukraine’s proposal to cap its armed forces at 800,000 rather than 600,000, which is important because Kyiv has finally settled on a number it can live with, and the US also agreed to deepen its role in providing security guarantees for Ukraine.
“But these are concessions by Trump, not by Russia, and Ukraine has not moved on ceding the remainder of Donetsk, a red line for both Kyiv and Moscow,” she explained.
Scott-Jones was cautious on whether the sides are actually close to a deal.
It is quite likely that the US and Ukraine will agree on a peace proposal around Thanksgiving, largely for Trump’s domestic benefit
“It is quite likely that the US and Ukraine will agree on a peace proposal around Thanksgiving, largely for Trump’s domestic benefit. But that ‘agreement’ will probably either dodge the territorial question in the Donbas or simply reflect the Ukrainian position. In both scenarios, Moscow is very likely to push back,” she said.
For Jason Jay Smart, any apparent diplomatic momentum cannot be understood without looking at Russia’s economic exposure and its habit of using wars to manage domestic politics.
Russia’s national budget is roughly 40–45% dependent on oil revenues, and around 80–85% of those revenues come from sales to China and India
Explaining Moscow’s incentive to engage, Smart noted that, in his view, Russia is engaging with this process mainly to buy time and to head off secondary sanctions on its oil sector, while trying to frame its participation as a reason to delay or soften those measures.
“Russia’s national budget is roughly 40–45% dependent on oil revenues, and around 80–85% of those revenues come from sales to China and India. Both of those countries have signaled they will not increase purchases of Russian oil if secondary US sanctions are tightened,” he explained, adding that the result would leave the Kremlin facing a real possibility of economic crisis early next year.
None of this, Smart argued, means the Kremlin has softened its demands. He believes that Moscow is not taking negotiations seriously and that its red lines are essentially unchanged from before the full-scale invasion. Russia’s demands remain maximalist, indicating, according to Smart, that Russia’s objective is not to reach a balanced peace but to keep pushing as far as it can.
On proposals that would see Ukraine pushed to cede the remaining parts of Donetsk, Smart called that militarily unrealistic. Expressing that the parts of Donbas that Russia wants but does not yet occupy are now among the best-defended in Ukraine, he noted that Russian forces are losing roughly 170 to 180 soldiers per square kilometer as they advance. To take all of that remaining territory, Russia would have to accept somewhere between 1.2 and 2 million additional soldiers killed or wounded.
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“Militarily, logistically, and economically, Russia does not have the capacity to seize that ground. It is hoping instead that the United States will pressure Kyiv to hand it over at the table,” he said.
For Smart, the roots of the war, and the stakes of any settlement, lie inside Russia as much as in Ukraine.
“I don’t think this war was ever primarily about Ukraine. Putin launched it for domestic reasons. That’s why, today, the more important question is what is happening inside Russia and whether it serves his interests to continue or to stop,” he said.
He described a system under strain, but with strong incentives to keep fighting.
“Russia is facing mounting economic problems. At the same time, we’ve seen the FSB arrest 17 generals in just the last couple of years—an extraordinary number when you compare it with Western militaries. There is essentially a quiet civil war within the oligarchy, with different factions competing over who will control the system after Putin,” he said.
He noted that Putin has placed close family at the top to maximize control and extraction, including his own niece as a deputy defense minister, and her husband as the minister of energy.
All of this, Smart warned, makes any settlement that simply pauses the fighting inherently unstable.
“Historically, Russia has often responded to domestic problems by starting or escalating wars, hoping to distract the public or reshape the internal dynamic. Even if a peace agreement were signed tomorrow, Russia would face a severe economic hangover—probably the worst in a quarter of a century. That, in itself, could create powerful incentives to re-escalate later. The risk of Russia reattacking in the future would remain very high,” he said.
Speaking from Kyiv, Smart also sketched life under bombardment as the diplomacy unfolded.
“People here are still surprisingly optimistic, and they are very clear about the future they want for their country. But the reality is harsh. Just last night, there was heavy bombing in Kyiv; most people didn’t sleep before 5 in the morning,” he observed.
However, a bad deal would simply come back to hurt Ukraine. According to Smart, if Kyiv lets Russia regain strength and then attack again in a year or two, that would be the worst-case scenario. Any agreement would have to be serious and enforceable, not just a pause for Moscow to regroup.
If Washington is driving the process and Moscow is testing how far it can push, where does that leave Europe?
For Matteo Pugliese, the answer is uncomfortably clear: it leaves Europe outside the room where the core conditions are being drafted.
Commenting on the leaked framework, Pugliese said that from what has been reported by Bloomberg and others, this looks less like a US-mediated negotiation between Russia and Ukraine and more like a Russian-American imposition of conditions on Kyiv.
The EU and the Ukrainian government see those conditions as unacceptable and have put forward an alternative framework, but that is likely to lead to another dead end, according to Pugliese.
“The Kremlin’s cognitive manipulation, aimed at Western elites and public opinion, gives Moscow a strategic advantage in setting the agenda and shaping how the main actors are perceived,” he said.
European governments, he noted, are acutely aware of their own limits.
In his view, European countries and EU institutions know they lack the political leverage to lead the talks or to dictate conditions. However, they can still influence the process indirectly via Washington through various channels, including the personal relationships some leaders have with President Trump and the broader bargaining power of Europe’s major economies.
On enforcement, Pugliese is blunt.
Any agreement will need a credible guarantor to be enforceable, and right now, the United States does not look like that guarantor
“Any agreement will need a credible guarantor to be enforceable, and right now, the United States does not look like that guarantor. Washington has openly signaled its intention to pull back from the European security architecture, even questioning NATO’s Article 5,” he said.
Under those conditions, he explained, a ‘NATO-like’ security guarantee for Ukraine would not be credible unless European countries were prepared to make a serious military commitment on the ground themselves.
Scott-Jones likewise argued that when a real endgame does emerge, European capitals will have to move from the margins to the center.
“We are still far from a final outcome. Russia’s demands remain well beyond what can realistically be accommodated in a negotiated settlement. But when that moment does come, European governments absolutely need to be at the table,” she said.
From her perspective, Europe holds key leverage points.
“Most of Russia’s frozen assets are under Belgian jurisdiction; the US cannot decide their fate alone. And any meaningful security guarantees for Ukraine will almost certainly depend on a European coalition, because only they can deploy troops and resources near Ukraine,” she added.
Even as negotiators exchange draft texts, Russian drone and missile strikes continue to hit Ukrainian cities and infrastructure, while Ukraine carries out its own strikes against military targets deep inside Russia. That reality, Scott-Jones warned, undercuts both the legitimacy and the durability of any paper agreement reached in Geneva, Washington, or elsewhere.
“Ongoing Russian offensives seriously undermine the legitimacy of negotiations. Nothing in battlefield developments or policy signals suggests that Moscow is preparing to de-escalate. On the contrary, Russia’s national development goals and federal budget are calibrated for long-term military engagement,” she said.
Noting that new legislation allows the military to draw on a “human mobilization reserve,” an active reserve of volunteers under contract with the Defense Ministry, she explained that in her view, when taken together, “these measures show that Russia remains committed to objectives that can only realistically be achieved through prolonged fighting.”
Inside Ukraine, she argued, any settlement that involves territorial loss or strict limits on Ukrainian firepower will have a long-lasting impact on politics and society.
“Territorial concessions or strict limits on Ukraine’s military are likely to provoke a strong backlash among citizens, displaced people, and the diaspora. Whenever a settlement does emerge, Ukrainian politics will probably enter a turbulent phase: there is no clear consensus across parties, institutions, or regions on what constitutes an acceptable outcome,” she said.
She added that in the latest survey in June, only 38% were actually willing to accept territorial concessions in exchange for peace.
The social and economic consequences of the war will also shape how any deal is perceived, Scott-Jones noted.
“The widespread availability of firearms raises the risk of higher violence and crime after the war. Housing shortages and war-induced poverty will strain social services and deepen socioeconomic divides. Economically, we are already seeing interregional disparities harden, with wealth concentrating in central and western Ukraine,” she said.
She concluded that if not managed carefully, these disparities could strain relations between central and local authorities.
On the political system after a settlement, she said that Ukrainian officials have resisted the idea of holding elections within 100 days of a settlement, arguing instead for an ‘as soon as possible’ timeline. When elections do take place, she surmised that public frustration with the war’s socioeconomic and territorial outcomes is likely to fall heavily on the current government.
“There is a high likelihood that legislators with military backgrounds will gain greater influence. Less experienced politicians may find it difficult to deliver the kind of reform momentum external partners expect, while parts of the system remain fixated on goals that may no longer be attainable,” she said.
For now, the US-driven plan has created movement—new texts, new shuttles by envoys, new timelines. But as Smart, Scott-Jones, and Pugliese all suggest in different ways, “breakthrough” may be the wrong word for a framework that still asks Ukraine to live with long-term risks, leaves Europe on the margins, and gives Russia space to regroup.
Whether this moment becomes an inflection point or just another tactical pause will depend less on what is announced in Washington than on whether the eventual deal truly changes the incentives—in Moscow, Kyiv, and Brussels—to keep fighting.
