President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed on Friday he would not betray Ukraine after being given just days to agree to a U.S.-proposed peace deal with Russia. 

The Ukrainian leader also warned that Kyiv faces a choice between losing a key partner and its national dignity at one of the most perilous moments in its history.

Ukraine is facing pressure to agree to a controversial 28-point plan by Thursday that would force it to give up its land, cut its army in half and hold elections within 100 days.

Exasperated Ukranians officials have privately complained that their mins are ”f***ing blown’ by the plan that they regard as a capitulation.  

The contentious plan endorses some of Moscow’s demands and leaves security guarantees for Kyiv vague. 

In a somber video address, Zelensky pledged to work with the U.S. on the plan but said he expects more political pressure over the next week. 

He urged Ukrainians to remain united in the face of what he said were additional attempts by Russia to derail the peace process.

‘Now is one of the most difficult moments of our history. Now, the pressure on Ukraine is one of the heaviest,’ he said.

‘Now, Ukraine can face a very difficult choice — either losing dignity or risk losing a major partner.’

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky attends a joint press conference with Turkey’s President following their meeting at the Presidential Complex in Ankara on November 19, 2025

President Donald Trump is demanding an answer from Zelensky on the peace plan by Thursday, but an extension on finalising the deal remains possible.

It comes after Ukrainian officials said feeling ‘f***ing mind blown has become our norm,’ after Trump threatened to cut key support for Kyiv if it did not agree to the framework of the proposal. 

Russia is grinding forward on the battlefield and pounding Ukraine’s energy system with missiles and drones as a domestic political crisis unfolds over a massive corruption probe involving senior officials and business elites.

Washington has presented Ukraine with terms that include that Kyiv cede additional territory, curb the size of its military and be barred from joining NATO.

Trump’s 28-point peace plan to end the war in Ukraine has sparked astonishment in Kyiv, as officials process how it appears to call for a full capitulation to Vladimir Putin’s draconian demands after almost four years of conflict.

U.S. President Donald Trump backs the draft proposal that would also see Kyiv pledge never to join NATO.

Ukraine is facing greater pressure from Washington to agree to the framework of a U.S.-brokered peace deal with Russia than in previous negotiation efforts, including threats to cease provision of intelligence and weapons, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Donald Trump, who ‘supports’ the plan, is expected to meet with the Ukrainian President in the coming days

One of the sources said that the U.S. wanted Ukraine to sign a framework of the deal by next Thursday.

Reacting to the proposal in an address to the nation on Friday, Zelensky said he would not ‘betray’ Ukraine, and would propose ‘alternatives’ to the plan widely seen as giving in to a host of Moscow’s demands.

The leader said his country was facing the critical choice of ‘either losing its dignity or the risk of losing a key partner,’ and that ‘today is one of the most difficult moments in our history’.

The leaders of Germany, France and the United Kingdom spoke by phone with the Ukrainian President, assuring him of their continued support.

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The four leaders ‘welcomed the commitment to the sovereignty of Ukraine and the readiness to grant Ukraine solid security guarantees,’ German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s office said in a cautious statement – clearly wary not to antagonize Trump while showing support for Kyiv.

But despite the pressure to accept the deal, Ukraine will refuse to accept any proposal that violates its ‘red lines’, the country’s top negotiator said on Friday.

‘There can be no decisions outside the framework of our sovereignty, the security of our people, or our red lines – now or ever,’ Kyiv’s security council chief and negotiator Rustem Umerov said on social media.

Many of the proposals are ‘quite concerning,’ according to a European government official, who told AP that Ukraine’s allies in the EU were not consulted in peace efforts, and that a bad deal for Kyiv would also be a threat to the bloc’s broader security.

Washington’s draft appeared to heed to the demands of the Kremlin, whose 2022 invasion has turned into Europe’s worst conflict since World War II.

The proposal comes with Russian troops grinding forward on the battlefield and with Zelensky facing domestic pressure after a corruption scandal rocked the country’s war-hit energy sector

Under the plan, Moscow would not only keep territories that it occupies but get more land currently controlled by Ukraine.

The West would lift sanctions on Russia and Moscow would be invited back into the G8.

The plan would also pile pressure on Zelensky, requiring elections to be held in Ukraine within 100 days – another key demand being pushed by Moscow, which has repeatedly and openly called for the Ukrainian leader to be toppled.

Zelensky has said he will discuss the plan with Trump in the ‘coming days’ – so far not saying if Kyiv would agree to any of it.

He has insisted his country needed a ‘dignified peace’.

‘With a neighbour like Russia, defending one’s own dignity, freedom, and independence is an extremely difficult task,’ he said Friday.

The European Union has not officially received the U.S. proposal but it would be discussed on the sidelines of the G20 in South Africa, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.

Putin had not commented but Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister who is close to the Kremlin and Washington, said it was a ‘decisive moment’ and the coming weeks will be ‘crucial’.

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with Transport Minister Andrey Nikitin (not pictured) at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, November 20, 2025

Reports that the United States and Russia were secretly working on a plan to end the conflict were leaked earlier this week, but the White House denied that it had prepared it with Moscow.

‘I will present arguments, I will persuade, I will propose alternatives,’ Zelensky said on Friday.

Recalling how he marshalled Kyiv’s response to the Russian invasion in February 2022 he said: ‘We did not betray Ukraine then, we will not do so now.’

He warned that next week his country will face ‘a lot of pressure… to weaken us, to make divide us’, adding that ‘the enemy is not sleeping’.

‘Ukraine’s national interest must be taken into account,’ he said, adding: ‘We’re not making loud statements; we’ll be calmly working with America and all the partners.’

The Ukrainian leader held a call with U.S. Vice President JD Vance as he warned Kyiv risked a rupture of ties with Washington over its plan to end the war with Russia.

It said its envoy Steve Witkoff – who skipped a meeting with Zelensky this week – and Secretary of State Marco Rubio had been ‘quietly’ working with both sides.

‘The president supports this plan. It’s a good plan for both Russia and Ukraine,’ White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.

Washington has warned, however, that the document was still in working mode, while Kyiv said it had been presented as a ‘draft plan’.

Under the plan, the United States would recognise Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions as well as Moscow-annexed Crimea, as ‘de facto Russian’.

‘Ukrainian forces will withdraw from the part of Donetsk Oblast that they currently control,’ the plan envisages.

The Donetsk region has been the epicentre of fighting, with tens of thousands of troops killed on both sides.

Despite still controlling around 14.5 per cent of the territory in the mineral and coal-rich eastern Donbas region, Ukraine will be forced to surrender the entirety of its industrial heartland.

The frontline would be frozen in the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, which are both partly occupied by Moscow.

Russia would be required to give up small pockets of territory it has seized in the Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

Ukraine would receive unspecified ‘reliable security guarantees’ while at the same time commit to cutting the size of its army, from over 900,000 to 600,000 personnel.

It would also bind Ukraine to ‘enshrine in its constitution’ not to join NATO but calls for European jets to be stationed in neighbouring NATO-member Poland.

The country would be banned from possessing long-range missiles, capable of hitting St Petersburg or Moscow.

And $100 billion of Russia’s frozen funds – sanctioned after its full-scale invasion in February 2022 – would go towards U.S.-led reconstruction efforts, with Europe contributing another $100 billion.

The U.S. would reap the benefits of the rebuilding projects, receiving 50 per cent of profits. The Russian economy would also receive a boost as part of a new long-term economic cooperation agreement with the U.S., which will involve rare earth metal extraction projects in the Arctic.

Aside for getting to keep its conquered territory, the plan also calls for Moscow, which is under massive Western sanctions for more than three years, to be ‘re-integrated into the global economy’.

Sanctions would be lifted and Moscow could rejoin the G8, which it was expelled from over the 2014 annexation of Crimea.

Trump’s sympathies have flipped repeatedly between Moscow and Kyiv since he returned to the White House earlier this year, with this plan seen as a sign that he has taken on many of Russia’s key positions.

The proposal comes with Russian troops grinding forward on the battlefield and with Zelensky facing domestic pressure after a corruption scandal rocked the country’s war-hit energy sector.

In a statement on X, Zelensky wrote: ‘The American side presented points of a plan to end the war- their vision. I outlined our key principles. We agreed that our teams will work on the points to ensure it’s all genuine.’

Ukrainian officials said the U.S. wanted Zelensky to sign the proposal before Thanksgiving, which falls on Thursday next week, with sources suggesting that the stiff deadline was unlikely to give Kyiv enough time to negotiate.

On Thursday, European countries pushed back against the plan, indicating they would not accept demands for Kyiv to make punishing concessions.

‘Ukrainians want peace – a just peace that respects everyone’s sovereignty, a durable peace that can’t be called into question by future aggression,’ said French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot.

‘But peace cannot be a capitulation.’

Moscow has downplayed the significance of the plan. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said that, while there had been ‘contacts’ with the U.S., there was ‘no process that could be called ‘consultations”.

He emphasised that any peace deal would have to address the ‘root causes of the conflict’ – a phrase the Kremlin has used as shorthand for the maximalist demands which, to Kyiv, are equivalent to surrender.

Despite the momentum building towards peace, Russia has shown no sign of stopping its relentless strikes on Ukrainian civilians.

An attack on the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia late on Thursday killed five people and injured three, the regional governor said.

It came after a Russian drone and missile attack in western Ukraine killed at least 26 people, including three children, after a block of flats in Ternopil was struck.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Thursday Kyiv and Europe needed to be involved in any Ukraine peace plan.

‘For any plan to work, it needs Ukrainians and Europeans on board,’ Kallas told reporters ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

‘We have to understand that in this war, there is one aggressor and one victim. So we haven’t heard of any concessions on the Russian side.’

Recent events may have further weakened Ukraine’s position. Russia’s tactic of pummeling the nation’s energy and transport infrastructure will likely plunge swaths of the country into cold and darkness, while Putin has made territorial gains in the east and on the southern flank in Zaporizhzhia.

To make matters worse, Kyiv is facing a manpower crisis: some four out of five Ukrainians are fleeing military training centres after being drafted into the army, and last month saw a record 21,000 deserters.

A corruption scandal is also engulfing the president that led to parliament dismissing the energy and justice ministers on Wednesday, diverting attention from the war.

In a telling post on X, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said: ‘Ending a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and realistic ideas.

‘And achieving a durable peace will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions.’

The proposal has been described as ‘heavily tilted towards Vladimir Putin,’ by unnamed sources quoted in the Financial Times.

The draft plan is ‘very comfortable for Putin,’ another source said.

Efforts to reach a peace deal have largely frozen since the last meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska in August, while Kyiv and Moscow have not held direct negotiations since the summer.

Russian forces control about 19 per cent of Ukrainian territory (44,800 square miles) and are grinding forwards, up from 18 per cent nearly three years ago.

Zelensky met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on Wednesday in an effort to ‘intensify’ peace negotiations.

He was due to hold talks with Witkoff, but the meeting was postponed because the Ukrainian President intended to discuss an alternative plan drafted by EU allies which the Trump administration felt would be unacceptable to Putin, a U.S. source told Axios.

Emergency teams conduct operation to extinguish fire after a Russian strike on Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine on November 21, 2025

Shops and a car caught fire after the strikes

The pyrotechnics of the State Emergency Service are conducting an inspection of the territory for explosive objects

Reacting to the proposal, Sir Keir Starmer reiterated his position that ‘Ukraine must determine its future’ following a call with European leaders.

The Prime Minister told broadcasters: ‘I just had a call with President Zelensky, alongside President Macron and Chancellor Merz.

‘And that was an opportunity for us to express, again, our support for Ukraine and the principle that’s very important, which is all matters to do with Ukraine must be determined ultimately by Ukraine.’

Wary of provoking Trump, the European and Ukrainian responses to the deal were cautiously worded and pointedly commended American peace efforts.

German Chancellor Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron and the British Prime Minister assured Zelensky of ‘their unchanged and full support on the way to a lasting and just peace’ in Ukraine, Merz’s office said.

‘They agreed to continue pursuing the aim of protecting vital European and Ukrainian interests in the long term,’ the statement said.

‘That includes the line of contact being the point of departure for an agreement and that the Ukrainian armed forces must remain in a position to defend the sovereignty of Ukraine effectively.’

Zelensky said the leaders discussed the plan and appreciated the efforts of Trump and his team, although he added that they are ‘working on the document’.

‘We are closely coordinating to ensure that the principled positions are taken into account,’ Zelensky said in a Telegram post.

A European government source said that the U.S. plans weren’t officially presented to Ukraine’s European backers. They see their own futures at stake in Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s invasion, which began in February 2022, and have insisted on being consulted in peace efforts.

Von der Leyen said she also would call Zelensky to discuss the 28-point plan.

‘Important is a key principle we have always upheld, and that is nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine,’ she said at a G20 summit in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Ukrainian MP Yaroslav Yurchyshyn told the Kyiv Independent that the White House wanted a ‘quick peace at the expense of one side, which they consider weaker’.