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Stop me if you’ve heard this one. President Donald Trump, eager to get another peace deal under his belt, sends everyone in Washington, Kyiv, Moscow, and Brussels scrambling as he announces that an agreement to end the Ukraine war is imminent. The proposal, on even the most cursory examination, is revealed to echo the Russian position, at which point Volodymyr Zelensky and the Europeans start an all-out offensive to pull the American president over to their side. The text is amended to reflect some of what Ukraine needs and wants in a settlement. This then renders it unacceptable to Vladimir Putin, and puts the peace deal Trump promised to deliver within 24 hours of taking office, 10 months ago, back out of reach.

The first time we witnessed this sequence was in February, soon after Trump’s inauguration. Then in the spring. Then again in August, in Anchorage, just ahead of the Labor Day holiday. Now, with a day to go before Thanksgiving, we’re somewhere around 80 percent through the script, though it’s pretty clear how it’ll end. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said as much on Tuesday: Given how much the plan has changed, Moscow is likely no longer on board.

Here’s what happened this time around. Last week, a 28-point peace plan leaked, catching everyone off guard—including, reportedly, national security advisor and secretary of State Marco Rubio. The document hewed pretty closely to Russian positions, including proposals to close NATO’s door to Kyiv and to hand over Ukrainian territory in Donetsk that Russia still hasn’t conquered. Other, less Kremlin-friendly elements included a proposal that seized Russian assets be used to pay for Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction.

That document, it turned out, was Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner’s idea, which Witkoff pitched to Vladimir Putin’s longtime foreign affairs advisor Yuri Ushakov. “I’m even thinking that maybe we set out like a 20-point peace proposal, just like we did in Gaza,” Witkoff told Ushakov when they spoke on October 14, according to two phone conversations that were leaked to Bloomberg. Witkoff then suggested that Putin sell Trump on the idea in a phone call—the one we know took place the day before Zelensky’s last visit to the White House—after, of course, congratulating Trump as “a man of peace.”

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Over three days in Miami, Witkoff and Kushner ironed out the details with Kirill Dmitriev—the America-educated head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund. The resulting plan was so favorable to Russia that rumors instantly spread alleging that it had simply been translated from Russian. A second leaked call published by Bloomberg, in which Dmitriev tells Ushakov to, essentially, plant some kind of “paper” with the American side in the expectation that they’ll just use most of it, only fueled the speculation. “I don’t think they’ll take exactly our version,” Dmitriev reportedly said in that October 29 call, “but at least it’ll be as close to it as possible.” Ushakov, once—or thrice—burned, counters that he doesn’t trust the Americans not to “twist it” while still claiming that the Kremlin agreed.

Of course, that’s precisely what happened. The 28-point plan is no longer the primary document. In feverish negotiations over this past weekend, the Ukrainian and American delegations agreed on a 19-point plan, the details of which have not been made public. Ukraine was quick to announce that it had agreed to a peace plan—this peace plan—pointedly adding that it leaves thorny issues like territory and security guarantees to be resolved at a later date. Then the American delegation, led by Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll, met with the Russian delegation in Abu Dhabi. By Tuesday evening, Trump announced that he was dispatching Witkoff (and perhaps Kushner) to Moscow, and Driscoll to Kyiv, to try to get the two sides to agree.

Meanwhile, back in Moscow, Ushakov hinted that the leaked calls were real. “Yes, there is contact through secure channels, when there are practically no leaks,” Ushakov said in a Wednesday damage-control interview with a Russian paper. “And then there are conversations over WhatsApp that someone can, apparently, somehow overhear. In this case, it’s unlikely that the leak came from participants in this conversation.” (Hilariously, the use of WhatsApp is technically banned by the Russian government—a fact that the newspaper quoting Ushakov was forced to explain.)

The White House, for its part, is glossing over the chaos of the past week to present the negotiations as a win. “This story proves one thing,” the White House told me in a statement. “Special Envoy Witkoff talks to officials in both Russia and Ukraine nearly every day to achieve peace, which is exactly what President Trump appointed him to do.”

In Washington—at least among the bipartisan crowd that, like most Americans, still backs Ukraine—people are alarmed. One foreign-policy insider pointed out that Ukraine, which is now arguing over a 600,000-troop limit on its military, “has been forced to negotiate against itself and make preemptive concessions.”

Others are simply confused. “Has there been anything else since this morning?” said Rep. Don Bacon, Republican of Nebraska, given the sundry peace plan drafts in circulation. Still, Bacon told me, what he had read most recently was an improvement over the original leaked draft. “It’s disgraceful that the U.S. would submit a proposal to give up Ukrainian territory and give up Ukrainian sovereignty,” he said. “It angered me to no end. And it embarrasses me as a Republican.” Bacon viewed the original 28-point plan as “Witkoff run amok,” and was reassured that Rubio seemed to be caught off guard by it as well. “I trust him,” he said. “I don’t think he’d give away the store.”

Bacon believes that the U.S. isn’t effectively using its leverage. After all, Trump could be sending Ukraine more weapons and dialing up the sanctions on Russia, then pushing for bigger concessions from the Russians. In short, Bacon said, Trump could be telling Putin, “If you want territory, let them into NATO. If not, then leave Ukrainian territory. Tough, but that’s the choice!” And the United States could insist on it.

“I don’t want Neville Chamberlain’s name in the same sentence as the president’s in the history books,” Bacon continued. “That’s where we were headed Thursday. And I told that to the White House.” Asked how the White House responded, Bacon said, “They say it’s just negotiating.”

In Moscow, this latest round of chaos was greeted with wincing skepticism: They’ve been down this road before. After Anchorage produced a framework the Kremlin could get behind, Trump “suddenly changed his approach,” in the words of one informed Moscow source—replacing the Russians’ cautious optimism with “worry and disillusionment.” This source, and another one close to the Kremlin, told me that Putin actually does want a negotiated end to the war, which has been long and expensive and interferes with Russia’s other international initiatives, particularly in the Global South.

The war is also exacerbating Russia’s economic stagnation, after the initial sugar high from military spending. Inflation is high. Oil prices are low. Budget deficits are growing. Sanctions are slowly doing their work as China price-gouges a cornered Russia. And Putin has had to go back on a key promise and raise taxes. As the source close to the Kremlin told me, “Things aren’t getting better for Ukraine, but they’re not getting better for Russia, either.” This person had recently spoken to one of Putin’s economic ministers, who he said didn’t foresee an economic collapse, “but there are problems and they’re accumulating.” (Not that it will matter. “Putin just says, This is the price we have to pay,” the source said. “For it to get so bad for him to end the war, that’ll take another 20, 30 years. In that time, Ukraine will collapse.”)

In the meantime, said the informed source, there’s the reality of the battlefield. As much as Kremlin propaganda trumpets its army’s successes in taking this or that town in Eastern Ukraine, and predicts imminent military victory, there’s a more honest accounting in private. Given its overwhelming advantage in manpower and resources, Russia should be winning more, and faster. And it’s simply not. “While the U.S. and Europe provide Ukraine weapons and support at these levels, absolute victory is not possible without escalating to dangerous levels,” the informed source said. “And it’s clear Putin does not want to escalate.” His desire to negotiate an end to the war, this person said, “is not a trick.”

And so, both sources told me, Putin has backed off some of his demands—including for Zelensky’s ouster, or the annexation of Odessa, Mykolaiv, and the rest of what Russia dubs Malorossiya, or “Lesser Russia.” Sensing my skepticism, the informed source insisted that these are major concessions, and that the majority of Russians believe Odessa is Russian and should be part of Russia. But this doesn’t mean, the informed source said, that “Russia will accept any terms.” Both sources said Putin won’t agree to a ceasefire before a negotiated settlement. “One-hundred percent won’t happen,” said the informed source. “Putin will never agree to this,” said the source close to the Kremlin.

The informed source also said Putin won’t consent to Russia’s seized assets being used for Ukrainian reconstruction above the initial proposal of $100 billion. The initial proposal was more palatable because it was paired with sanctions relief and economic cooperation. Accepting more would lead the population to lose respect for Putin, the source suggested: “Given the political psychology in Russia, it’s just impossible.”

Meanwhile, Putin’s core demands—the “root causes,” in Kremlin parlance—haven’t changed. “The war won’t end until NATO stops expanding,” the source close to the Kremlin said. “He’s been repeating this for 15 years. What’s changing is the details. In 2022, there was one set. He might want something else in a year.” Putin will not accept less than he thinks Ukraine owes him—or that he can get from them on the battlefield. “If you’re not ready, fine,” the source close to the Kremlin said of Putin’s thinking. “We’ll just have to fight ’til you’re ready.”

Still, Moscow is clearly happy that Trump is willing to spend political capital on peace talks, even as the Kremlin tries to cater to what they call “Trump style.” The informed source said it’s understood that the American president doesn’t like long, detailed negotiations, but the source close to the Kremlin expressed frustration that so much depends on “who got to Trump first and spoke to him last.”

Then there’s the president’s chief envoy, Witkoff. “He’s very territorial,” said the source close to the Kremlin. “He doesn’t let anyone else onto the pitch.” Other frustrations include episodes in which Witkoff didn’t quite understand what Putin was telling him, only to have the resulting miscommunication blow up in Trump’s face. “Witkoff sometimes works like a broken telephone,” the source close to the Kremlin said. “He doesn’t like being precise, doesn’t like anyone writing anything down. He gets upset when people try to write down what he says.” Nevertheless, this person said, “He’s slowly figuring things out. Before, he didn’t understand anything. Now, he understands more.” Added the source, “Now his list reflects 90 percent of Putin’s wishlist, so that means he’s finally understood something.”

Meanwhile, as much as Moscow says it wants to work with the Trump administration to quickly bring an end to the war, the two camps have different definitions of “quickly.” Even if Moscow agrees to the new, 19-point plan, said the source close to the Kremlin, working out all the details won’t happen in a week—and both sides need more than a list of bullet points. Given the human lives lost on both sides, the source said, “the blood dictates certain things.” Trump might “stamp his little foot,” this person continued, but “both Ukraine and Russia have their own internal politics, [such] that Trump can’t just tell them what to do.”

Neither source I spoke to believes a full, final deal is possible before the end of the year, at least not if all of Moscow’s concerns aren’t taken into consideration and negotiated in nauseating detail—which everyone knows Trump has no patience for. The absolute, best-case, pie-in-the-sky scenario, the source close to the Kremlin said, would be a peace deal by spring, following months of intense, round-the-clock work. Right now, though, that work isn’t happening. “The way it’s organized now, I don’t see a chance,” the source said. “It’s all very poorly organized. But it is what it is. It’s better than nothing.”

That’s all from me, friends. Have a happy holiday and I’ll see you back here next week. Until then, good night. Tomorrow will be… Thanksgiving.

Julia

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