Just a quick housekeeping note: last night in comments, Gin & Tonic had a very good and important response to my remarks regarding whether Ukraine is losing. There’s not enough time tonight to get to the important strategic issue that it raises, which is how to win the war AND secure the peace. I will try to get to this tomorrow.
Before we start, here’s Ukraine’s outgoing fires this evening/overnight:
Ukrainian channels report that over 400 drones flew to Russia.
— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) December 10, 2025 at 4:37 PM
President Zelenskyy and Ukrainian leaders continue to go through the motions with the US to demonstrate that they’re not being obstructionist, which has led to the emergence of a twenty point proposal. The Ukrainians are doing this because they know that Russia has already rejected any agreement that doesn’t reward Russia by giving them everything Putin wants.
Ushakov was quoted by Russian media on Sunday as saying that the United States would have to “make serious, I would say, radical changes to their papers” on Ukraine. He did not clarify what changes Moscow wanted Washington to make.
The Kremlin has said it expects Kushner to be doing the main work on drafting a possible deal.
David Ignatius provides the details at The Washington Post:
The negotiating package involves three documents, a Ukrainian official told me: the peace plan, security guarantees and an economic recovery plan. The talks are far from over, with Ukraine and European supporters planning to release a joint set of amendments Wednesday. But here are some of the ideas being explored, as described to me this week by U.S. and Ukrainian officials:
• Ukraine would join the European Union as early as 2027. This rapid accession worries some E.U. powers. But the Trump administration thinks it can overcome opposition from Hungary, which has been Kyiv’s biggest E.U. opponent. Membership would foster trade and investment. But perhaps most important, it would force Ukraine to control its pernicious culture of corruption in state-owned businesses.
At bottom, this war has been about whether Ukraine can become a European country. President Vladimir Putin detests that idea, with his mystical belief in the oneness of Russia and Ukraine. Quick E.U. membership for Kyiv looks to me like victory.
• The United States would provide what are described as “Article 5-like” security guarantees to protect Ukraine if Russia violates the pact. Ukraine wants the U.S. to sign such an agreement and have Congress ratify it; European nations would sign separate security guarantees. A U.S.-Ukrainian working group is exploring how the details would work — and how fast Ukraine and its allies could respond to any Russian breach.
The reliability of the U.S. guarantees is arguably undermined by language in the National Security Strategy that seems to erode the NATO alliance, on which the guarantees are modeled. But the Trump team says it’s committed to continuing U.S. intelligence support for Ukraine, which is the sine qua non of security.
• Ukraine’s sovereignty would be protected from any Russian veto. But negotiators still seem to be struggling with delicate issues like limits on Ukraine’s army. There’s talk of raising an initial U.S. proposal for a 600,000-soldier army to 800,000, which is roughly what Ukraine would have anyway, postwar. But Kyiv refuses any formal constitutional cap, as Russia wants. Whatever the nominal size of the army, officials say there might be supplements like the national guard or other support forces.
• A demilitarized zone would be established along the entire ceasefire line, all the way from the Donetsk province in the northeast to the cities of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in the south. Behind this DMZ would be a deeper zone in which heavy weapons would be excluded. This line would be closely monitored, much like the DMZ that divides North and South Korea.
• “Land swaps” are an inescapable part of the deal, but Ukraine and the U.S. are still haggling over how the lines would be drawn. Russia demands Ukraine give up the roughly 25 percent of Donetsk it still holds; the Trump team argues that Ukraine is likely to lose much of that in battle over the next six months, in any event, and should make concessions now to spare casualties.
U.S. negotiators have tried various formulas to make this concession more palatable for Zelensky. One idea is that the withdrawal zone would be demilitarized. Zelensky insisted Monday that he has “no legal right” to cede territory to Russia. One way to finesse this issue is the Korea model — to this day, South Korea claims a legal right to the entire peninsula and North Korea asserts the same.
• The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, would no longer be under Russian occupation. Negotiators are discussing the possibility that the United States might take over running the facility. Strange as it may sound, that appeals to some Ukrainian officials because it would provide an American tripwire against Russian aggression.
• The Trump administration would seek to foster investment and economic development in Ukraine. One source of funds would be the more than $200 billion in Russian assets now frozen in Europe. Trump’s negotiators already proposed making $100 billion of that stash available to Ukraine for reparations. The amount might be increased.
More at the link.
This is not just going to continue to be a non-starter for Ukrainians, we already know, as the quote above indicates, that anything other than full capitulation is unacceptable to Putin and Russia.
Republican Congressman Joe Wilson noted that Ukraine agreed to all six proposals that Trump presented this year, while Russia did not support any of them.
— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) December 10, 2025 at 7:21 AM
I wish the press would start using its brains before calling the deal Ukraine is being pushed to accept a “Korean‑style deal.”
The Korean deal works because it is enforced heavily
Ukraine is being pressured to accept nothing more than a russian pinky promise, backed by Trump’s
— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) December 10, 2025 at 2:31 PM
Also, Trump and his natsec team have sided with the DPRK’s hereditary dictator Kim over the US’s actual ally the ROK.
Moreover, Trump has adopted a new demand as a result of his regular and ongoing phone calls with Putin: Zelenskyy has to go because Ukraine isn’t a democracy because they haven’t held elections during the war.
⚡️US needs ‘answers’ before next meeting with Zelensky, Trump says.
Trump did not discuss specific conditions of the peace deal but said Zelensky needs to be “realistic” and asked when Ukraine would hold presidential elections.
— The Kyiv Independent (@kyivindependent.com) December 10, 2025 at 5:32 PM
From The Kyiv Independent: (emphasis mine)
European officials want to arrange a meeting this coming meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky and American leadership to discuss peace in Ukraine, but the White House first needs “answers,” U.S. President Donald Trump said on Dec. 10.
Trump told reporters that he spoke with the leaders of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom on Dec. 10.
“We discussed Ukraine in pretty strong words, and we’ll see what happens,” he said. “I mean, we’re waiting to hear answers.”
According to Trump, the European leaders want to hold a meeting involving both him and Zelensky in Europe this weekend, but the White House requires further persuasion before agreeing to attend.
“They would like us to go to a meeting over the weekend in Europe, and we’ll make a determination depending on what they come back with,” he said. “We don’t want to be wasting time.”
Trump did not discuss the details of any proposed peace framework but said Zelensky needs to be “realistic.” He also mused aloud about Ukraine’s next round of presidential elections.
“I think (Zelensky) has to be realistic and I do wonder about, how long is it going to be before they have an election,” Trump said. “It’s a democracy. It’s been a long time.”
On the same day, Zelensky told reporters that Ukraine could be ready to hold elections during Russia’s full-scale war if the U.S. and European allies work to ensure security.
Zelensky then said he discussed the issue with members of the Ukrainian parliament on Dec. 10.
“I will not allow any speculation against Ukraine,” the president said in his evening address.
“If our partners, including our key partner in Washington, talk so much and so specifically about the elections in Ukraine, about elections under martial law, then we must provide legitimate Ukrainian answers to every question and every doubt.”
Presidential, parliamentary, and local elections in Ukraine are banned under martial law, which went into effect after Russia’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022. While Kyiv has previously held firm on the need to postpone elections until the end of the war — or at least a ceasefire — Trump’s emphasis on elections in the latest push for a deal have brought about a shift.
Polling also shows Zelensky’s popularity to have hit a low point in the fallout of a major corruption scandal that saw his second-in-command, Andriy Yermak, resign from office.
Though Trump has expressed impatience with Ukraine for slow progress on a peace agreement, the Kremlin meanwhile has given no sign of easing its maximalist demands — including calls for Ukraine to cede territory it still controls.
To sum up:
- Russia has not abandoned its maximalist demands and every time a concession is proposed, let alone made, they double down and increase their demands. It’s a case study in how to apply the metaphor of eating the elephant in small bites.
- Trump has now bought into and adopted Putin’s argument that President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian leadership, but especially President Zelenskyy are illegitimate because the Ukrainian constitution prohibits the holding of elections under martial law, which Ukraine has been under because of Russia’s genocidal re-invasion of Ukraine.
- Of course Putin was claiming President Zelenskyy and his government were illegitimate before the genocidal re-invasion because they opposed Russia and weren’t under Putin’s control.
- I expect that a formal demand will be coming from Trump that any agreement must include President Zelenskyy’s resignation and the holding of elections. Trump is clearly doing Putin’s dirty work here.
- The vast majority of this is more of the same we’ve been seeing from the Trump administration over the past eleven months. It’s unacceptable to Ukraine and Ukrainians, as well as the US’s European and Nato allies and partners because it rewards Putin and Russia and sets Russia up for the next phase of its world war. It is unacceptable to Putin and Russia because it doesn’t accede to their maximalist demands, which expand every day.
- Comparing anything to the armistice that has led to the Korean war being unresolved since 1953 is not a good thing.
- I expect that this, like every other Trump admin initiative involving Ukraine is going to limp along and then fall apart. Because Trump has already admitted he’s abandoned Ukraine.
“Biden gave Ukraine $350 billion. And you know what I gave them? Nothing.” — Trump.
— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) December 9, 2025 at 4:00 AM
And he hates Zelenskyy too:
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.
War for Ukraine Day 1,385: A 20 Point Proposal EmergesPost + Comments (17)
