The so-called 28-point “peace plan” presented by the United States to Ukraine has triggered a political earthquake on both sides of the Atlantic.
At the centre of the storm is a deeply uncomfortable allegation: that the document appears to echo, in places almost verbatim, long-standing Russian proposals and maximalist positions.
The idea that Washington may have advanced a framework shaped, directly or indirectly, by Kremlin interests has raised profound questions about political judgment, foreign influence, and the integrity of Western decision-making at the highest levels.
In the US, the fallout is fierce. Critics accuse the Trump administration of laundering a Russian negotiating template through American institutions and marketing it as an American initiative to “end the war.”
Others argue that this is simply the continuation of a long-established pattern: concessions to Moscow dressed up as diplomacy, pressure on Ukraine framed as “pragmatism,” and a persistent refusal to apply any meaningful demands or consequences on Russia. The optics are unmistakable.
Once again, Ukraine is told to accept territorial loss, accept reduced sovereignty, accept open-ended insecurity, while Russia is offered relief, legitimacy, and an escape from a war it is losing militarily. All endorsed by President Trump.
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To those of us who have lived this war, served on the frontlines, and watched Russia’s strategy evolve from invasion to genocide to psychological warfare, the more urgent question is not whether the plan is Russian. It is whether Russian intelligence has succeeded in shaping policy within the highest echelons of a Western government.
The Trump administration already carries an unenviable reputation inside Ukraine: unreliable, unpredictable, and at times openly hostile. This 28-point ambush has angered many here, particularly coming at a moment when President Zelensky was embroiled in a domestic corruption scandal. Intended or not, the plan risked doing the opposite of what its authors claim, overshadowing the scandal and projecting Zelensky, at home and abroad, as a wartime leader under siege.
The uncomfortable truth is that Moscow has spent decades cultivating influence networks across Europe and the United States. Some of this is overt: state propaganda, political funding, economic leverage, energy dependence, but much of it is covert, kompromat, targeted disinformation, infiltration of institutions, and the weaponisation of corruption and chaos.
We have watched how quickly Western discourse can be shaped or polluted: from the Tenet Media scandal, where pro-Kremlin narratives were allegedly laundered through Western “independent journalists,” to figures like Graham Phillips, a British propagandist who embedded himself in Russian-occupied territories to push Kremlin messaging directly into UK media spaces, and most recently the jailing of Nathan Gill over his role in disseminating Kremlin-aligned disinformation for money.
Russia does not need an agent inside the Oval Office to influence policy. It simply needs to create the conditions in which Western leaders, institutions, and media ecosystems internalise and amplify proposals that advance Russian objectives, even unintentionally. When you see a “peace plan” that ticks every box on Moscow’s wish list, the question of Russian influence is not conspiratorial. It is unavoidable.
But even that is only part of the problem. The deeper Western failure is strategic. Europe and the United States still struggle to grasp something fundamental about Vladimir Putin: he will not sign a ceasefire that constrains his ambitions. He does not seek peace; he seeks victory, or, at minimum, the ability to claim it domestically. Every pause, every ceasefire, every “freeze” to the conflict serves only one Russian purpose: to regroup, rearm, and resume the assault. This is not theoretical. It is the documented pattern of every Russian military intervention in the modern era, from Georgia to Syria to Donbas.
Putin’s aims have never shifted because they are ideological, not tactical. He wants subjugation, not compromise. He wants Kyiv, not coexistence. He invaded to erase Ukrainian statehood, rewrite borders, and reverse the collapse of the Soviet empire. These are not negotiable objectives. And yet Europe and the US continue to behave as though they are.
Which brings us to the central question: can Ukraine actually trust the West if a ceasefire is ever agreed?
History urges caution. The Budapest Memorandum of 1994 — the agreement under which Ukraine surrendered the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal in exchange for security guarantees from the US, UK and Russia — was rendered meaningless the moment Putin invaded Crimea. No Western state enforced its obligations. Statements were made. Sanctions were issued. But the very purpose of the Memorandum — to prevent territorial aggression— collapsed without resistance.
Trust, once broken, cannot simply be requested. It must be earned.
The behaviour of the current Trump administration has done little to rebuild that trust. The pressure campaign against Kyiv, the presentation of a Russian-aligned plan as “peace,” the threats of cutting aid, the coercion and ultimatums, all of it sends a chilling message to Ukrainians fighting for their survival: that American support may be conditional, unreliable, or expendable in pursuit of a transactional geopolitical deal.
For many in Ukraine, especially those on the frontlines, the fear is not only that the West will force a ceasefire on Ukraine, but that it will then abandon it. What happens when, not if, Russia violates the agreement? Would the United States truly honour a security commitment that could draw it into direct confrontation with Russia? Would Europe, fragmented, divided, energy-dependent and politically volatile, take decisive action? Or would Ukraine once again find itself alone, trapped between the illusion of Western security and the reality of Russian aggression?
These fears are not abstract. They are lessons written in blood. Putin has committed the most heinous war crimes seen on European soil since the Second World War: mass executions, industrial-scale torture, the deportation of children, systematic rape, and the deliberate targeting of civilians. He has violated every ceasefire he has ever signed. Yet Western policymakers continue to behave as if he is a rational actor seeking a negotiated settlement.
Ukraine understands what many abroad refuse to accept: there is no sustainable peace with a war criminal who views treaties as temporary inconveniences. There is no agreement that can restrain a man whose strategic aim is the elimination of Ukrainian statehood. And there is no “ceasefire” that will be honoured by a regime that interprets weakness not as an invitation to compromise, but as an invitation to strike.
The 28-point plan is not merely a flawed proposal. It is a symptom of a broader Western delusion: that this war can be ended through paperwork rather than victory, through appeasement rather than deterrence, through wishful thinking rather than strategic clarity.
Ukraine does not need more plans. It needs partners who understand the enemy we are fighting and who understand that real peace comes only when aggression is defeated, not rewarded.
It’s not within Russia’s interest to sign or honour any agreement, not while Putin has annexed more territory than he controls.
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