Ukraine agrees to US-backed peace deal, reports say
Caroline MolloyUkraine has agreed to the core terms of a revised U.S.-backed peace deal that could end the nearly four-year war with Russia, ABC News reported Nov. 25, citing a U.S. official.
“The Ukrainians have agreed to the peace deal,” the official told ABC. “There are some minor details to be sorted out, but they have agreed to a peace deal.”
The breakthrough follows several days of intensive diplomacy led by the Trump administration. According to ABC, U.S.-Ukraine talks over an initial 28-point peace proposal were revised to a 19-point plan during meetings in Geneva over the weekend, where Ukrainian negotiators first signaled they would accept the revised terms.
Ukraine’s Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Rustem Umerov publicly acknowledged the Geneva discussions and confirmed that Ukraine agreed to the “core terms” of the plan.
“We appreciate the productive and constructive meetings held in Geneva between the Ukrainian and U.S. delegations, as well as President Trump’s steadfast efforts to end the war,” Umerov wrote on X. “Our delegations reached a common understanding on the core terms of the agreement discussed in Geneva. We now count on the support of our European partners in our further steps.”
He added that Ukraine expects President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to travel to the U.S. “at the earliest suitable date” in order “to complete final steps and make a deal with President Trump.”
Following the weekend meetings in Geneva, the U.S. opened secret negotiations with Russia. U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and his team held continuous talks with a Russian delegation in Abu Dhabi Nov. 24-25 to press the framework, ABC reported.
“The talks are going well, and we remain optimistic,” Lt. Col. Jeffrey Tolbert, a spokesman for the U.S. Army, said, according to ABC. “Secretary Driscoll is closely synchronized with the White House and the U.S. interagency as these talks progress.”
The diplomatic push intensified after Axios published a leaked copy of the original 28-point peace proposal on Nov. 20. Several U.S. lawmakers and European officials criticized the initial draft as overly generous toward Russia. According to ABC, the revised 19-point plan removes provisions Ukraine considered unacceptable, including wartime amnesty clauses and limits on Ukraine’s future military size.
