The Washington Post reported that Trump’s Special Envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are working on a four-part peace plan for resolving the Ukrainian Conflict. The first part concerns Ukraine’s reconstruction in which BlackRock and the World Bank would take the lead. That’s sensible considering their respective experience in asset management and loans. The second part is about security guarantees, with Ukraine expected to receive Article 5-like ones. It already de facto has them, though.
As was explained here in March 2025, Article 5 doesn’t obligate the dispatch of troops, only that allies consider providing some degree of support for those of their fellows who find themselves under attack. That’s precisely what NATO has been doing since the start of the special operation by giving Ukraine arms, funds, and intel. Trump’s reported peace plan would assumedly formalize these ties for “deterring” Russia from reinitiating hostilities, but it might embolden Ukraine to carry out a false flag to this end.
The third part is the most interesting of the four and it “would be economic integration of Russia, Ukraine and Europe through an energy deal” so as to give them all shared stakes in keeping the peace. The report didn’t mention it, but this could potentially be advanced through at least partial US control over the Nord Stream, Yamal, and/or Brotherhood pipelines as part of the resource-centric strategic partnership that Russia and the US have been negotiating. Readers can learn more about it here.
And finally, the last part calls for a full ceasefire that would indefinitely freeze the conflict along the Line of Control, but presumably without either side abandoning their claims to the other so that their leaders can still “save face” before their respective people given the sensitivity of such a compromise. From Russia’s respective and in the order that they were mentioned, Russia doesn’t care who reconstructs Ukraine, it just doesn’t want its frozen assets in the West to be stolen for this purpose.
As for formalizing Ukraine’s Article 5-like security guarantees, Russia of course disapproves of them, but they haven’t provoked Russia into attacking European NATO. Russia is therefore expected to accept them, however begrudgingly, since it hasn’t been able to sever these ties despite nearly half a decade of trying. Moving along, Russia has always called for the full lifting of Western sanctions, including on its energy industry. It’ll thus likely favor a grand energy deal between itself, Ukraine, and the EU.
This includes the scenario of partial US control over its pipelines to facilitate that. And finally, while Russia recognizes the entirety of the disputed regions as its own, Putin might agree to pursue these claims diplomatically instead of militarily if the rest of the terms of a package deal are to his liking. After all, he recently reaffirmed during his Q&A session at the Valdai Club’s latest annual meeting that he agreed to the US’ terms at Anchorage, which reportedly entailed a territorial compromise of some sort.
Reflecting on the insight that was shared in this analysis, Putin is arguably expected to accept Trump’s reported peace plan (if the details thereof that the Washington Post reported are accurate) and especially if the third part about a grand energy deal comes to fruition, but Zelensky is expected to oppose this. It’ll therefore be incumbent on Trump to coerce Zelensky into agreeing, such as by cutting off arms and/or intel, otherwise his special envoys’ hard work in recent months will all be for naught.
