At the end of 2025, Donald Trump’s administration is again trying, according to Western media reports, to push a deal to end the war in Ukraine. Leaked details describe 28 points, including territorial concessions in Russia’s favor, cuts to the Ukrainian army, and Kyiv’s отказ from joining NATO. In exchange, Ukraine would reportedly receive major international assistance, while Russia would get gradual sanctions relief and economic reintegration.
In an interview with Novaya Gazeta Europe, Kennan Institute director Michael Kimmage said he has almost no faith in the plan’s success. In his view, the central flaw is that the proposal concerns Ukraine’s future and Europe’s security, yet Europe has effectively been left out of the process, while EU officials have already described such an approach as unacceptable.
Kimmage argued that the entire framework rests on the vague idea of “security guarantees” for Ukraine. He said such guarantees cannot be reduced to a short political formula: after the Budapest Memorandum and the Minsk agreements, Kyiv is unlikely to accept painful concessions without detailed and enforceable commitments.
“The plan was assembled too quickly to be viable,” the expert said of the current initiative.
He added that the Trump administration is simultaneously talking about reducing the US military role in Europe, making it unclear what real protection such promises would contain. Kimmage also said the phrase that Russia “will not invade neighboring countries” sounds more like rhetoric than policy without any enforcement mechanism, especially given the ongoing occupation of Ukrainian territory and Moscow’s military presence in other countries in the region.
In the expert’s view, Russia is seeking not simply control over individual cities but the ability to impose its own security architecture along its borders. That, he said, means tensions between Russia and the West could remain high for a long time.