US President Donald Trump has given Kyiv until 27 November - the American holiday of Thanksgiving - to respond to his proposal to end fighting in Ukraine, a timeline and blueprint that EU leaders have baulked at.
Kyiv and its allies nonetheless spent the weekend hammering away at Washington's 28-point plan, which initially hewed close to Russia's hardline demands, requiring the invaded country to cede territory, cut its military and pledge never to join NATO.
An updated version, aiming to "uphold Ukraine's sovereignty", was thrashed out over the weekend at emergency talks in Geneva.
Tania Reut looks at reaction so far to the amended plan.
Naturally, Moscow would have much preferred the original US 28-point peace plan.
Some commentators in pro-Kremlin media hailed it as the first framework that almost entirely reflects Russia's demands.
Europe’s amendments, however, are "unconstructive" and "don't suit" Russia, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov told reporters yesterday.
His remarks came after EU leaders responded with their own ceasefire proposal for Ukraine, following the leak of the US draft last week.
According to reports, the plan has since been cut to 19 points after the Geneva talks, and this version may be far less palatable to the Kremlin.
Along with a larger peacetime army for Ukraine and stronger security guarantees (akin to NATOs article 5), the European proposal keeps the door open for Kyiv to join NATO.
It also dropped point 26, which offered "full amnesty for their action during the war" - despite the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin over alleged war crimes in Ukraine.
A piece yesterday in Russia’s widely read tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda called Europe’s demands a "fantasy" and "unacceptable" for the Kremlin, with the author particularly appalled by Europe’s idea to keep Russian assets frozen until Moscow pays full reparations to Ukraine.
Writing for Russia’s oldest news agency TASS, analyst Andrey Surzhanski described Europe’s swift response to the US peace plan as "a clear sign of the anxiety into which the EU hornet's nest has plunged".
Russia’s flagship evening news programme on Channel One last night branded Europe’s proposal to address territorial issues only after a ceasefire is brokered as "scandalous".
The bulletin also claimed that Brussels is "thirsty for war" and covering up corruption in Volodymyr Zelensky’s office.
Amid a flurry of articles in the Russian media relishing the biggest corruption scandal of Mr Zelensky’s presidency, the Kremlin’s spokesperson suggested that Moscow might object to Ukraine’s president signing the final ceasefire document.
Dmitry Peskov told the media it is "premature to discuss Ukraine’s possible signatory to the agreement in light of the illegitimacy of its current leadership".
Moscow insists that Mr Zelensky, who was elected in 2019, remains in power illegally, though Ukraine’s constitution bans elections during wartime.
Senator Valentina Matviyenko, Mr Putin’s long-time ally, told newspaper Moskovskiy Komsomoletz that the EU "turns any peace plan into a plan for continuing war", accusing the bloc of belonging to the "global party of war".
She went on to claim EU leaders lack legitimacy compared to Donald Trump, arguing that the union’s policy "of opposing Trump - a legitimate president who won the election with a clear majority ... is being determined by unelected European officials".
In his piece for Rossiyskaya Gazeta - Russia’s government official newspaper, banned in the EU in 2024 for "manipulating with information and distorting facts" - political commentator Fyodor Lukyanov praised Washington’s "realistic approach" to a conflict of "high but not existential significance" - "at least not for external parties".
From Ukraine’s perspective, the outcome of this peace process is nothing short of existential.
