by Seymour Hersh via https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/an-endgame-in-ukraine
Excerpt

Washington remains split as secret talks on a settlement proceed

In Washington, the Democratic Party leadership, having spent years ignoring the impairment of President Joe Biden, is now ignoring the increasing evidence that Russia has won the war in Ukraine. Leading Democrats in Congress have returned to the mentality of the Cold War in their contempt for and fear of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

I can report that some of those involved in the on-and-off secret talks between Ukraine and Russia are convinced that the long stalemated war will soon be ended by a closely calculated division of territory that has been lost by each side in a war that Putin chose to initiate in February of 2022.

There is still a widespread belief in the Democratic Party that President Donald Trump’s chronic complaints about the leaders of the nations that make up NATO are not paying their way are, as one international scholar told me, “a ruse.” Trump is really interested, the scholar said, “in weakening democratic, liberal Europe and its collective institutions in order to make it easier for his new ally, Putin, to throw his weight around.” The scholar quoted a recent essay by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, the world economy editor of the Telegraph, who compared Trump’s actions to the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop pact between the Soviet Union and Germany that barred the countries from attacking each other. and left Germany to focus on Western Europe, drawing the UK into the war.

The scholar cited a number of Trump administration actions to back up his view of Trump as little more than a Russia asset. The president has ceased arms shipments to Ukraine and intelligence sharing with its military. He ordered an end to offensive cyber operations against Russia. He and Vice President JD Vance publicly supported pro-Russian political parties in recent European elections. Some of his key aides are working to revive the flow of cheap Russian gas to Germany via the remaining Nord Stream pipelines “to keep Western European countries, especially Germany, dependent on Russian gas and oil, thus providing Putin with another lever of influence” in Western Europe.

The major American media, most notably the New York Times, remain hostile to Putin. The newspaper’s opinion and news columns repeatedly express the belief that, having won a large chunk of Ukraine on the battlefield, Putin would take advantage of any negotiated settlement to deepen Russia’s hold on Ukraine. It is feared that Putin would take a settlement, which could include the dropping of all sanctions on Russian gas and oil trading, as a sign of American weakness, and that Russia would undercut the leadership of the Baltic states and continue to undermine Nato and the European Union.

by Sergey Markov

The race of peace plans for Ukraine. So far it looks like this:

US plan.
1. Truce.
2. Elections of the President of Ukraine.
3. Peace negotiations with the participation of the new president.
4. Peace treaty.
5. Deployment of peacekeepers from European NATO countries and neutral countries.

Europe’s Plan.
1. Stopping hostilities in the sky and sea.
2. Peace talks. With the participation of Europe and Zelensky.
3. Peace treaty.
4. Deployment of peacekeepers from NATO countries in Europe and participation of the US Army in this operation.

Russia’s plan.
1. No ceasefire, because it will only be for the strong rearmament of Ukraine.
2. No supposed peacekeepers from NATO.
3. First, negotiations between Russia and the United States and the development of a peace agreement.
4. Then the inclusion of Ukraine (the president is not important) and Europe in the negotiations.
5. Peacekeepers only from neutral countries.
6. Denazification of the regime is mandatory.
7. Demilitarization of Ukraine is mandatory.

China and the Global South’s Plan.
1. First, a truce.
2. Then negotiations for at least a century.

Note in response to a comment below:

The Ukrainian Plan:
1. First, Russia agrees to giving back all the lost Ukrainian territories, Donbas, including Crimea.
2. Then, $300 billion in war reparations, paid by Russia.
3. In due corse joining NATO and getting full security guaranties from NATO.
4. Finally, start preparations for joining the EU.

by John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with

During the Oval Office meeting last Friday with Vladimir Zelensky, President Donald Trump said: “We gave you through this stupid president [Biden] $350 billion.”

The day before, in Trump’s two press conferences with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on February 27, Trump repeated this number three times over: “And then if you look at the war, we’re in for $300 billion plus and they’re in for $100 billion, they get their money back and now we’ll get our money back also. But under Biden, you wouldn’t have done that.”

“We don’t get the money back. Biden made a deal. He put in $350 billion and I thought it was a very unfair situation…And we didn’t have that honour under the Biden administration. He sent money or just sent money after money after money and never had any knowledge of ever seeing it back, maybe $300 billion to $350 billion. But under the breakthrough agreement, very unusual, which everyone said was difficult to get, but it’s really very good for Ukraine and very good for us. The American taxpayers will now effectively be reimbursed for the money and hundreds of billions of dollars poured in to helping Ukraine defend itself, which by and of itself is a very worthy thing to do. We’ve paid far more than any other country and, with most of our support, it’s been paid in military, the finest weapons anywhere in the world.”

Three days earlier on February 24, Trump told French President Emmanuel Macron the same number: “The deal is being worked on where I think getting very close to getting an agreement where we get our money back over a period of time. But it also gives us something where I think it’s very beneficial to their economy, to them as a country. But we’re in for $350 billion…that’s a lot of money, a lot of lot of money invested and we had nothing, nothing to show for it and it was the Biden administration’s fault. The Europeans are in for about $100 billion and they do it in the form of a loan. And the Europeans have been great on this issue.”

This was Trump’s opener with Macron in the Oval Office. He then repeated the same numbers twice at their afternoon press conference: “The United States has put up far more aid for Ukraine than any other nation, hundreds of billions of dollars. We’ve spent more than $300 billion and Europe has spent about $100. $100 billion, that’s a big difference and at some point, we should equalize, but hopefully we won’t have to worry about that…I mean we’re in there for about $350 billion. I think that’s a pretty big contribution.”

Macron, Starmer and Zelensky knew Trump’s $350 billion number was the claim he was making because Trump had rehearsed and repeated it before. “The United States has given $350 billion,” Trump told the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), “because we had a stupid, incompetent president and administration, $350. But here’s worse, Europe gave it in the form of a loan, they get their money back…We give them billions of dollars and we gave them our military equipment, just tremendous numbers of billions of dollars’ worth of–billions and billions.”

Macron, Starmer and Zelensky didn’t dare to differ or correct Trump, let alone tell him he was mistaken or faking.

The US Government audit record, however, shows, not only that Trump’s 350 number is twice larger than the actual number appropriated by Congress between 2022 and the present: that number is $182.78 billion. But Trump’s claim to have “given”, “spent”, or “sent” 350 to the Ukraine is more than four times the number which has been actually disbursed: this number is just $83.43 billion.

Trump’s number conceals a repeated lie that Trump’s Secretaries of State, Defense, and Treasury, his Director of National Intelligence, his Budget Director, and his National Security Advisor all know to be a lie, as do Macron, Starmer and Zelensky. This is the number which the Special Inspector General (SIG) appointed by Congress to investigate, audit and document where the money has gone, has just reported.

In this new SIG report, published on February 11, 2025, it is revealed that of the actual appropriation of $182.784 billion, $44.85 billion (24.4%) has been programmed to pay for US ground forces, weapons, “procurement”, and “operation and maintenance”, in Europe, outside the Ukraine, “to support the full range of costs associated with the increased U.S. military presence in Europe, both to support Ukraine and to provide enhanced deterrence in Eastern Europe.”

This money — the small print reveals — includes spending by the US military commands on propaganda and public deception operations. The official rationale is reported for the Army: “USEUCOM works to counter Russian disinformation in Europe…[including] campaigns in Bulgaria, Georgia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina with the goal of disrupting Russia’s influence and improving allies’ and partners’ resilience to Russia’s malign activities…[and] to develop and manage online platforms that engage with the target audiences through docuseries, infotainment, social media commentary, and by leveraging third-party social media influencers.” Read more here.

In addition, the Inspector-General’s report reveals that $45.78 billion (25.1%) has been allocated for “replenishment of DoD stocks”. This means repurchasing from US military contractors the weapons they have already been paid to deliver to the US Army, Navy, Air Force, and other Pentagon forces.

Finally, another $33.21 billion (18.2%), tagged the “Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI)”, has been legislated for the programme, according to the SIG report, “through which State procures, and the DoD delivers weapons, materiel, services, and training requested by partners and allies.” This has been the scheme to pressure European and other US allies to send their existing Russian or Soviet-made arms inventories to Kiev, and replace them with US weapons, creating thereby “opportunities to transition some countries to U.S. rather than Russian military equipment.”

In other words, $123.84 billion, or more than two-thirds (68%) of the US aid programme for the Ukraine war, is planned to go to the US arms industry. The American word for this is a hustle. Lawyers call it extortion and fraud.

The full Inspector-General’s report runs to 130 pages, including methodology, footnoted sources, itemizations of US weapons, lists of audits and investigations, and one classified appendix. Read the 93-page text here.

For illustration, here are several key money tables and piecharts which give the lie to the Trump claims:

Source: https://media.defense.gov/ -- p.25

Source: https://media.defense.gov/ – p.38

The Inspector-General’s report also reveals that the US has been providing a far smaller share of loans to the Ukraine than the Europeans and the UK.

Although termed loans, the US and the other lenders reserve the right to reduce or cancel repayments, and the Congress has already been doing this.

The text of the Report also reveals that there is no intention by the US, the European Union, the UK, or other US allies to require the Ukraine to make loan repayments. Instead, their scheme is for Russia to repay through the confiscation of Russian state assets ordered as part of the western economic war.

When Trump made his declaration last week in justification of the minerals agreement with the Ukraine — “we’re in for $300 billion plus and they’re in for $100 billion, they get their money back and now we’ll get our money back also. But under Biden, you wouldn’t have done that” – the President was lying. Instead, he and his allies are proposing grand larceny from Russia – the grandest larceny in the history of state and empire theft.

“Since February 2022,” the Inspector-General reported to Congress, “the international community has immobilized approximately $300 billion in Russian sovereign assets held at U.S., European, Canadian, and Japanese financial institutions. Most of the immobilized assets are held in the European Union. This quarter [October-December 2024], the G7 nations initiated the extension of $50 billion in loans—called extraordinary revenue acceleration [ERA] loans—to Ukraine, to be repaid by future windfall proceeds of those assets. Subject to interest rate changes, the frozen assets will generate proceeds of roughly $2.6 to $3.2 billion a year. The loans will provide budget support for the Ukrainian government’s immediate financial needs, while the United Kingdom’s contribution of an estimated $2.8 billion is earmarked as budget support for military equipment. The United States provided $20 billion [40%] in loans as part of the initiative. Repayment of the loans will be through income earned from investments on immobilized Russian sovereign assets. The assets will not be seized; instead, the European Union will collect and disburse the investment profits that those assets generate to pay back G7 members’ loans.” – p.34

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is actively participating in this warfighting scheme of fraud, theft, and lying.

In the December 20, 2024, report of the IMF Executive Board and the Fund staff on the Ukraine’s financial condition, the Fund claimed “Adequate reserves have been sustained by continued sizeable external support… The [IMF loan] program remains fully financed with a cumulative external financing envelope of US$148 billion in the baseline and US$177 billion in the downside over the 4-year program period, including commitments from the G7’s Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration Loans for Ukraine (ERA) initiative. Full, timely and predictable external support—on terms consistent with debt sustainability—remains essential to maintaining full program financing and safeguarding stability.”

What the IMF means by ERA is stealing from the confiscation of Russian assets.

The IMF staff responsible for the Ukraine omitted to identify the risk that in an end-of-war settlement, the Russian terms would include the return of the confiscated assets and thus an end to that source of loan repayment.

“An earlier end to the war,” the Fund report claimed on December 20, 2024, “could entail a wide set of outcomes. A potential peace settlement could, on the one hand, result in an upside scenario conditional on the available international support and accelerated reforms, a stronger recovery and medium-term potential could result from a quicker return migration and private investment flows anchored by EU accession. On the other hand, despite an earlier end to the war, the security situation may not stabilize promptly thereafter, or the war’s ultimate damages could be even greater than currently understood. In this event, there are risks of adverse economic and social outcomes, including lower private investment, higher migration, and weaker reform momentum, entailing a slower or incomplete post-war recovery.”

SIXTH REVIEW UNDER THE EXTENDED ARRANGEMENT UNDER THE EXTENDED FUND FACILITY, REQUESTS FOR MODIFICATION OF A PERFORMANCE CRITERION, AND FINANCING ASSURANCES REVIEW – source: https://www.imf.org/en/ -- p.3.

In this box chart, the IMF reveals how it is planning for the stolen Russian funds to be used to repay each of the allied lenders to the Kiev regime, according to the Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration Loans for Ukraine (ERA):

Source: page 27 of https://www.imf.org/en/

In the IMF staff report, the confidence that the Ukraine will have no debt to repay the US or the other state lenders comes from “assurances from the European Commission and the G7”: “The updated debt sustainability analyses reflect the current status of the ERA financing, and the program’s debt sustainability objectives remain the same. As the EU and other G7 members are still finalizing their ERA arrangements, staff has maintained the same conservative forecasting assumption from the Fifth Review and incorporated ERA financing in public debt. As expected, the loans will be serviced by distributions from the Ukraine Loan Cooperation Mechanism (ULCM) that collects proceeds from the extraordinary profits qualifying CSDs derive from immobilized Russian assets (Figure 6). Based on assurances from the European Commission and the G7, staff continues to judge that the risks of Ukraine having to assume any residual liability for servicing ERA financing are sufficiently mitigated so that this financing can be carved out from the assessment of the debt restructuring targets. Moreover, the US has formally cancelled half of the repayable economic assistance (US$4.65 billion) provided under the Ukraine Security Supplemental Appropriations Act; the remainder continues to be treated as a contingent liability for the assessment of the debt restructuring targets. Moreover, the US has formally cancelled half of the repayable economic assistance (US$4.65 billion) provided under the Ukraine Security Supplemental Appropriations Act; the remainder continues to be treated as a contingent liability for debt sustainability analysis purposes.”

via Moon of Alabama

U.S. president Joe Biden was found to be too senile to stand for re-election. But that does not hinder the powers that be to let him launch world war III.

After ‘allowing’ Ukraine to fire U.S. controlled ballistic missiles onto targets in Russia the Biden administration is adding largely prohibited antipersonnel mines into the mix.

Biden approves antipersonnel mines for Ukraine, undoing his own policy – Washington Post

Over 160 countries, including Ukraine, have signed treaties which prohibit the use of antipersonnel mines. During his campaign Biden had spoken against the use of such weapons.

Despite that he has now authorized the provision of antipersonnel land mines to Ukraine. The claimed reason for that is born out of propaganda:

“Russia is attacking Ukrainian lines in the east with waves of troops, regardless of the casualties that they’re suffering,” one of the officials said. “So the Ukrainians are obviously taking losses, and more towns and cities are at risk of falling. These mines were made specifically to combat exactly this.”

There are no and have been no ‘waves of troops’ with which the Russian army is attacking Ukrainian positions. I challenge everyone to find me a video that shows such a ‘wave’.

There are instead small groups of troops which infiltrate Ukrainian positions after these have been ravaged by artillery fire. The WaPo piece admits as much:

Ukrainian troops have struggled to build strong defensive lines in the face of relentless drone sorties and small assault teams.

Antipersonnel mines, even deactivated ones, continue to be a danger for the population even decades after a war ends. It is criminal to use these in a war that has already run its course:

[H]uman rights campaigners said that the U.S. decision to provide antipersonnel land mines to Ukraine — a signatory to the Mine Ban Treaty — is a black mark against Washington.“It’s a shocking and devastating development,” said Mary Wareham, deputy director of the crisis, conflict and arms division at Human Rights Watch, the advocacy group, who said that even nonpersistent mines hold risks for civilians, require complicated cleanup efforts and are not always reliably deactivated.

The most significant effect of Biden’S decision will be the proliferation of a type of weapon that was rightfully on its it way to total banishment:

The Ukraine conflict has spurred other countries to reevaluate their opposition to antipersonnel land mines. The Baltic nations of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia considered withdrawing from the Ottawa Convention earlier this year in order to bolster their defenses against Russian aggression, although they ultimately decided to reinforce stocks of antitank mines and other tools that are less hazardous to civilians.

The US is “not impressed” with Ukraine’s “win plan” ahead of the Biden-Zelensky meeting, The Wall Street Journal writes.

According to the publication, the Biden administration is concerned that the Ukrainian president’s plan to win a military conflict against Russia lacks a comprehensive strategy and is nothing more than a “repackaged request” for more weapons and lifting restrictions on long-range missiles, US officials told the WSJ.

For months, President Volodymyr Zelensky has called the plan the foundation for defeating Russia, and he plans to brief President Biden on its details during a meeting at the White House on Thursday.

But senior U.S. and European officials familiar with the outlines of the plan say the document does not offer a clear path to victory for Ukraine, especially as Russian forces slowly but surely make gains on the battlefield.

“I’m not impressed, there’s nothing new in it,” said one senior U.S. official.

The US and Ukraine had hoped for unity in choosing their path forward, but now they find themselves at a decisive stage of military conflict without a common vision, the publication notes.

In a speech at the United Nations on Wednesday, Zelensky warned of looming Russian threats to his country’s energy infrastructure and nuclear plants, but he stopped short of laying out any details of a peace plan or making weapons-related requests.

Behind the scenes, Zelensky is pushing a maximalist proposal in the hope that the United States and its allies will give Kyiv everything it wants, according to American and European officials.

But the current state of the Ukrainian framework has disappointed senior Biden aides, according to U.S. officials who have traveled to Kyiv in recent weeks to review elements of the plan.

They were hoping to hear something tangible that the Biden administration could support as it faces just four months of its term.

Earlier, other Western media outlets also wrote that Western officials did not see any prospects for a breakthrough in the war in Zelensky’s “victory plan.”

US Senator Lindsey Graham has openly said Washington needs Ukraine’s natural resources and that, therefore, military aid to the country must continue until Kiev is able to “win” its conflict with Russia.

The South Carolina Republican, one of the top backers of Kiev within the US establishment, made the remarks on Friday in Kiev, speaking alongside leader Vladimir Zelensky. He praised the Ukrainians and their purported resolve to fight Moscow no matter what, noting that this means that Americans themselves don’t have to do this, only to provide the weaponry.

“They [the Ukrainians] are sitting on a trillion dollars’ worth of minerals that could be good to our economy. So, I want to keep helping our friends in Ukraine. We can win this. They need our help,” Graham stated.

The senator has long been very open about Washington’s true goals in the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, repeatedly bringing up the “trillions worth” of resources in the hands of the Ukrainians as a crucial asset and the ultimate prize for the US. He also previously described the deaths of Russians in the conflict as “the best money we ever spent” and an all-round solid investment for the US.

Pompeo’s peace plan for Trump, according to Markov:

1. Stop hostilities along the existing front lines.

2. Ukraine joins NATO as soon as possible.

3. Ukraine receives 500 billion dollars for a powerful army, 300 billion from Russian money.

4. The West does not recognize that the former regions of Ukraine are part of Russia.

5. Crimea and Donbass and other former regions of Ukraine – propose demilitarization.

6. After this, sanctions against Russia are lifted.

7. Powerful investments in the US military-industrial complex. Preparing for a new war.

8. An alliance between the United States and Israel with Saudi Arabia in order to jointly lower oil prices and thus ruin Russia. And also weaken Iran.

Conclusions.

1. This Pompeo-Zelensky plan, because Pompeo receives money from Zelensky in Ukraine through Kyivstar, where he became a member of the board of directors.

2. This is a strong plan. Its purpose is to encourage the Russian elite to betray: a quick lifting of sanctions is proposed, which is what the Russian elite dreams of.

3. The result of this plan will be a very strong army of Ukraine in 5 years and demilitarized Crimea and Donbass and, with a high probability, a new big war in 5 years.

by Gilbert Doctorow

For those among you who still believe that my high expectations of a Donald Trump 2.0 administration in the domain of foreign relations are misplaced, I offer some considerations based on the ‘warts and all’ presentation of Trump’s thinking and belly-led inclinations coming from his former ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell. See

Sadly this two day old English language video has received only 22,000 views [the German language version has received 10 times that number[. It merits vastly more attention from an American audience. What you get here is the underlying logic of what the mainstream media falsely denounce as the ‘isolationism’ of MAGA. In fact the isolationism is nothing more than drawing back from the overextended position as global policeman that the country cannot afford financially.

This video provides a wealth of clues as to how Trump’s promise to snuff out the wars that Biden lit can be achieved quickly. Most importantly it allows us to see beyond the bravado of transactional foreign policy based on overwhelming U.S. strength and bullying. What we see instead is the fundamental weakness of the U.S. position that necessitates the turn away from military solutions in favor of diplomacy and, second, the realization that the United States has no fundamental interests at stake in how the diplomatic solution is structured other than to see that both sides make compromises that ensure the deal will stick and be properly enforced by global powers in a way that Minsk-2 was not.

Throughout the interview, Grenell takes as his point of reference the unsupportable 37 trillion dollar national debt, which must be cut back, not added to in the years of a future Trump administration. This can only be realized by ending the wars that Washington is fueling NOW.

I put this explanation of why the United States under Trump will cut all further assistance to Ukraine together with the explanation we heard from Senator J.D. Vance, now Trump’s running mate, in his speech on the Senate floor just before the fateful vote on an additional 60 billion dollars appropriation to Kiev: that in the ongoing war of attrition the United States simply does not have the manufacturing capacity to send to Ukraine the 155 mm artillery shells and other munitions and weapons systems that it needs to defend itself against the greatly superior Russian armed forces, which are backed up by the world’s biggest production of these necessities of war.

*****

Given the realism underlying these guiding principles of the future Trump foreign policy which will operate on the old truth that politics is the art of the possible, given the longstanding foundation of Russian foreign policy in the very same tradition of the Realist school that puts national interest foremost, what may we expect to find in the peace settlement that Trump may broker as from the days immediately following his election on 5 November?

I hazard the guess that notwithstanding the claims that Trump may make that he has forced concessions on both sides to reach a peace, that peace will be largely based on the latest proposal by Vladimir Putin on the day before the phony Summit on Peace held in Switzerland in June.

To be sure, the Russians will give up their territorial claims to the entirety of the 4 provinces they have already incorporated into the Russian Federation but never fully conquered. It may even be that they will keep only two of these, Donetsk and Lugansk, while Kherson and Zaporozhie are returned to Ukraine under conditions that guaranty substantial autonomy to them, in the sense of the Minsk-2 accords that were never implemented for lack of active intervention by the West European guarantors of the accords. After all, Russia’s national interest was never territorial aggrandizement but its security from NATO encroachment.

Why the distinction between the 4 provinces? Firstly, because Lugansk and Donetsk constitute the most heavily Russophone part of Ukraine and suffered the greatest losses of people killed and property destroyed from the 8 years of shelling and ‘anti-terror’ marauding by Ukrainian military units as from 2014 to the start of the Special Military Operation in 2022. They are also the most valuable territory for their metallurgical and general manufacturing traditions. And they are essential to ensure the viability of Russia’s hold on Crimea. Letting go Kherson and Zaporozhie would return to Ukraine valuable Black Earth land which is essential to ensure the economic viability of the rump state.

At the same time, surely the Russians will set as a non-negotiable demand the formal refusal of Ukraine to ever seek NATO membership, a prohibition on the placement of foreign military infrastructure or personnel on Ukrainian territory and limits on the size and capabilities of the Ukrainian armed forces.

It is virtually certain that Russia will raise no objections to Ukraine joining the European Union. And it is conceivable that Russia will contribute to the rebuilding of Ukraine by ceding part or all of the 350 billion dollars in frozen Russian state assets now in the West as an act of good will, not as war reparations. Russia can well afford to do this because it recouped a large part of this amount in the first year of the war from the vastly inflated prices of the hydrocarbons it sold on world markets as a result of global disruptions in energy supplies. In return, Russia will surely demand, and likely the West will agree to rescind all economic sanctions that have been imposed on the country.

I believe that a package closely resembling what I have outlined above can be sold to the American public, especially if there is provision of massive funding for the reconstruction of Ukraine using the frozen funds with Russian consent and thereby avoiding the risks of overturning the global financial system inherent in the presently discussed outright confiscation of Russian state assets. Moreover, the exchange of land for money is a widely accepted solution that even the much abused Ukrainian citizenry might well accept, were they to be asked in a plebiscite.

via Sergey Markov

Everyone is now discussing a new peace plan for Ukraine. Boris Johnson wrote it, this is his plan. But he wrote it after meeting Trump and it is a plan for Trump.
1. Dramatically increase arms supplies to Ukraine.
2. Remove all restrictions for Ukraine on the use of weapons. That is, let the Ukrainian Armed Forces fire missiles at Moscow and St. Petersburg.
3. Help the Armed Forces of Ukraine push the Russian army to the start line of the Northern Military District.
4. Throw out the demand to return to the 1991 borders. That is, leave Crimea and Lugansk plus Donetsk to Russia.. 5. Give special guarantees to the Russian-speaking population inside Ukraine. 6. Remove sanctions against Russia. Restore good relations with Russia. 7. Admit Ukraine to NATO and the EU.
8. The huge and experienced army of Ukraine should partially replace American troops in Europe.
9. Johnson constantly emphasizes that this plan requires will power, and only Trump has it.

via Moon of Alabama

Zelenski’s ‘peace summit’ in Switzerland had failed:

The reviews of Zelenski’s latest show ain’t positive:
…
The summit served warmed up bullshit without any significant nutritional value. The most important points weren’t even discussed:
…
The war will continue until the complete destruction of the Ukrainian forces can no longer be ignored.

The last point may have come earlier than anticipated.

On June 27 Zelenski had changed tact (machine translation):

During a speech in Brussels, the president said that Ukraine wants to start negotiations on ending the war in the near future.“Ukraine does not want to prolong the war, we do not want it to last for years. We need to put a settlement plan on the table within a few months, ” he said.

Zelensky said that in the near future it is planned to develop a plan for the second world summit.

On June 28 he gave more details (machine translation):

President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that Ukraine will present its detailed peace plan “this year”.The President announced this during a press conference in Kyiv.

“It is very important for us to show an end-of-war plan that will be supported by the majority of the world. This is the diplomatic path that we are working on. Not everything depends on us, our production of technology, drones, and artillery is really increasing, because we need to be strong on the battlefield. Because Russia understands nothing but force. These are two parallel processes: be strong and develop a detailed, clear plan, and it will be ready this year, ” Zelensky said.
…
Note that the Ukrainian peace plan has long been presented by Zelensky. It implies the withdrawal of Russian troops to the borders. However, many countries of the world (especially representatives of the “global South”) consider it unrealistic.

In other words, a new plan will probably be prepared.

Earlier Russia’s President Putin had announced his conditions for a permanent peace agreement. How many of them will Zelenski accept within his new ‘peace plan’?