Axios: US Drafting Secret Plan to End Ukraine War

The U.S. is secretly working with Russia on a new plan to end the war in Ukraine, according to an Axios report Tuesday, which says the Trump administration has been quietly negotiating a 28-point proposal behind the scenes.

The initiative — described by U.S. officials as inspired by President Donald Trump's recent success in pushing a 20-point peace deal in Gaza — has been developed in consultation with senior Russian officials, who told Axios they are "optimistic" about the effort.

It remains unclear how Ukraine or European governments will react to the still-unreleased proposal.

Peace terms for Ukraine Security guarantees Broader European security Future of U.S. relations with both Russia and Ukraine.

Axios noted the plan's treatment of the most explosive issue — territorial control in eastern Ukraine — remains uncertain. Russian forces have recently advanced but still hold far less than the Kremlin demands.

Axios reported that Trump's special envoy, businessman Steve Witkoff, is leading the drafting process. Witkoff has held extensive discussions with Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund and a central figure in Moscow's Ukraine diplomacy.

Dmitriev told Axios he spent three days meeting with Witkoff and Trump advisers during an Oct. 24-26 trip to Miami, saying he believes the effort is gaining traction because "the Russian position is really being heard."

Witkoff was expected to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Turkey this week but postponed the trip, Axios reported.

Dmitriev told Axios the proposal is based on principles Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed during their August summit in Alaska.

He said the draft aims not just to end the conflict in Ukraine but to create a "broader framework" for restoring U.S.-Russia relations and addressing Moscow's long-standing security demands.

I was not thinking of any special names for Odessa, I was just commenting on the recent importance of Odessa as the transshipment point for grain and other products coming down the river from Ukraine’s interior. A lot is stored in Odessa warehouses, and then loaded on to ships going to many parts of the world. Perhaps some products are directly loaded from river craft to ocean craft. At any rate Russia cares enough to have bombed some of the warehouses and other locations there. This explanation does not diminish Odessa’s cultural contributions whether Ukrainian or Russian in source.

It is not “fake news” that Trump has come up with something. What makes it fake is his tendency to jump from idea to idea, to change his mind given the next interesting person he talks with, and the complexity of his own thinking when trying to practice The Art of the Deal. Thus it is impossible to give much credit to his statement of the moment. In that sense, much of what he says is fake, so it is much better to try to figure out what he really wants, and who he may be listening to at any given time, in order to come up with a guess that might actually be real.

Actually while there is truth to your item 4, Russian corruption and infrastructure was/is even worse.

I have the impression there was a quality of difference between the focus of the corruption. It seems that the goal of Russian corruption was to achieve great luxury including large yachts, sports teams, and mansions. You had Russians raking off money to not build proper border protections. In the military equipment sector, money was raked off and tanks and other equipment was poorly or not build, and what was built by the Big money boys, was then picked apart by the little guys for small parts and chips so they could buy better food to feed their families.

On the other hand just looking at the Ukraine urban landscape it does seem that a lot of building of housing was going on, good agricultural equipment was being purchased, as well as urban supplies like buses, firetrucks, and ambulances. I’m sure that a lot of deals where made where somebody overpaid for things that actually happened, not for things that were ultimately a total loss as so often has seemed to be the case in Russia.

An analysis of the differences between how and why corruption was practiced in those two countries might yield interesting results. I imagine our leader knows something about corruption since he was dealing in NY real estate. My brother was once doing architectural work for some mob connected people who were laundering money in a big historic restoration project. He would sometimes catch them cheating on construction laws and would try to explain that it was actually easier to accomplish the building goals the legal way. They seemed to have an inbuilt system that made them want to choose the illegal way rather than the easier legal way.

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