This Is Ukraine’s Moment of Truth.

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Video originally published on November 26, 2025.

This Is Ukraine’s Moment of Truth. Introduction. Ukraine has been offered a peace—and if Ukraine accepts, then it will hand Russia the victory that it’s sacrificed everything, to try and prevent. The United States would recognize Russia’s claims to the territory, although the territory would, in practice, be—and we’ll quote again—“considered a neutral demilitarized buffer zone […] Russian forces will not enter this demilitarized zone.” In the regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, territorial control will be frozen at the line of contact between Russia and Ukraine, meaning that Russia would, by default, gain recognition and control of the territory that it currently controls.

Key Takeaways

This Is Ukraine’s Moment of Truth. Introduction. Ukraine has been offered a peace—and if Ukraine accepts, then it will hand Russia the victory that it’s sacrificed everything, to try and prevent.
Last week, Ukrainian authorities were presented with a twenty-eight-point peace proposal, co-authored by envoys from Russia and the United States, with Ukraine and its European allies completely excluded from the discussion.
After nearly four years of continuous, all-out war, this is Ukraine’s moment of truth—and the chances of any real victory, are vanishingly small.
Remember, Russia has been very clear, since the start of this conflict: it wants to destroy Ukraine’s sovereign government, destroy the very idea of Ukraine, and either annex it outright or create a Russian-backed puppet state in its place.
The peace proposal consists of a total of twenty-eight individual points, and while the proposal hasn’t been formally published, as of the time of writing, copies of the plan have been circulated to the global press, allowing us to report on their contents.

Key Developments

Last week, Ukrainian authorities were presented with a twenty-eight-point peace proposal, co-authored by envoys from Russia and the United States, with Ukraine and its European allies completely excluded from the discussion. The plan, quite frankly, is impossible for Ukraine to accept; it’s a near-carbon copy of the diplomatic wish-list that Russia has been clinging to, since the war’s opening hours, and it would practically guarantee that Russia could invade Ukraine again, in the very near future. But Washington has made itself abundantly clear: Ukraine is expected to accept the deal, it must accept the deal, unchanged…or Washington will leave it behind. It’s an impossible situation for Kyiv, and one that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy laid out, in stark terms: “Now Ukraine may find itself facing a very difficult choice: Either loss of dignity, or the risk of losing a key partner”. Zelenskyy faces an existential choice, at a moment of clear weakness on the home front: Reject the deal, and get ready to pay for Ukraine’s survival with even more lives than before, or accept it, and lay the foundation for Ukraine to be swallowed completely by Russia in the coming years. Right now, everything matters: the precise terms of the proposal, the situation inside Ukraine and on the battlefield, the circumstances behind the proposal’s very creation, and the all-out effort from Ukraine and its remaining allies, to find some other way forward. Hammering out a twenty-eight-point peace plan in just a few days’ time would be a difficult process, even if Russia and Ukraine’s positions were far better-aligned than they already are. Once the deal is signed, the United States will moderate a dialogue between Russia and the NATO alliance—an interesting choice, considering that the United States is, at least on paper, part of the NATO alliance instead of an independent arbiter—and during that dialogue, all sides will supposedly work toward de-escalation and address outstanding security concerns.

Strategic Implications

After nearly four years of continuous, all-out war, this is Ukraine’s moment of truth—and the chances of any real victory, are vanishingly small. The Peace Plan. Before we get into the specifics of the peace plan that was presented to Ukraine last week, we’ve got to take a moment and explain one critical piece of context, something that we’d strongly encourage you to keep in mind for the duration of today’s episode. Everything we discuss today, every point within this peace plan and every bit of negotiation that comes afterward, needs to be interpreted in context to the threat of a second Russian invasion. That’s the dark, but distinct possibility that Russia intends to set overwhelmingly favorable terms for a peace, force Ukraine to agree, and then, once Ukraine has downsized its military, neutered its defensive capabilities, and sworn off any protection from the US or Europe, Russia will re-invade and take Ukraine over for good. That’s a possibility that Ukrainian and European leaders, and an abundance of international conflict experts, have been warning about for years—and, we don’t want to give too big of a spoiler, but suffice it to say that this most recent proposal has validated those fears, instead of calming them. Even within his own party, some leaders lambasted the draft proposal, with Republican Senator Thom Tillis stating, quote: “if Administration officials are more concerned with appeasing Putin than securing real peace, then the President ought to find new advisers.” Or, here’s former Senate leader Mitch McConnell: “Putin has spent the entire year trying to play President Trump for a fool.” Late on Saturday, Trump attempted to walk back from the perceptions that this was an immediate, make-or-break moment for Ukraine, and that Ukraine had been pressured to accept the deal as-is. During the conference, EU leaders reiterated the positions they’d taken in the immediate aftermath of the deal’s announcement: that Ukraine’s borders cannot be changed by force, that its military strength cannot be diluted to the point that Ukraine would be vulnerable to a second attack, and that between Europe’s substantial contributions to Ukraine and the clear strategic relevance of a ceasefire, Europe must consent to any peace deal by the time that it’s agreed.

Risk and Uncertainty

Remember, Russia has been very clear, since the start of this conflict: it wants to destroy Ukraine’s sovereign government, destroy the very idea of Ukraine, and either annex it outright or create a Russian-backed puppet state in its place. Russia has the capabilities; think back to the early days of its Ukraine invasion, and Russia was stonewalled because of easily avoidable, frankly idiotic logistical failures, not because it lacked the strength to conquer Ukraine if it had fought competently. By establishing a favorable peace deal, while placing a set of sweeping limitations on Ukraine’s ability to arm or defend itself in the future, conflict observers fear that Russia could spend a couple of easy years resting and training its soldiers, rebuilding its troop columns, and establishing a better invasion plan…before crashing into Kyiv like it had planned to do, in 2022. With everything that we’re going to discuss today, bear in mind that that is the worst-case scenario, and the one that Ukraine desperately needs to avoid. Now, the draft peace proposal that the United States presented to Ukraine last week, was the product of a series of secretive closed-door meetings between American presidential envoy Steve Witkoff, and his counterpart from the Russian Kremlin. Ukraine, and its European allies, were excluded from the drafting process, and at least publicly, they were not alerted that the process was even taking place. Remember, this is far from the first attempt to reach a diplomatic settlement in Ukraine, and the most important parts of Russia and Ukraine’s positions are fundamentally unchanged, compared to where they’ve been in prior rounds of negotiation. The first point on the deal is that, quote, “Ukraine’s sovereignty [is] to be reconfirmed”—but, naturally, it’s not clear who is supposed to do the re-confirming, or that Russia would ever have to acknowledge the idea, even just through its rhetoric. Trump criticized his predecessor, Joe Biden, for sending Ukraine weapons and money free of charge, and reiterated his long-held claim that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine at all, if he’d been in charge of the United States at the time the war broke out.

Outlook

The peace proposal consists of a total of twenty-eight individual points, and while the proposal hasn’t been formally published, as of the time of writing, copies of the plan have been circulated to the global press, allowing us to report on their contents. And, if you’d like something else to bear in mind as we discuss the plan, we’d also be remiss not to mention that, at least initially, this proposal was not presented to Ukraine or the public, as the sort of thing that was open to further negotiations. Quoting Donald Trump last Friday: “He’s going to have to approve it”—he, meaning Zelenskyy. So, we’re going to go through those twenty-eight points, and get a closer look at just how troubling, from Ukraine’s perspective, this plan really is. Just a note, by the way: Instead of reading through the proposal’s individual items in sequence, we’ll be putting the twenty-eight points into groups based on the issues that they’re each intended to address, so that we can fill in the gaps and give important context a bit more easily. We’ll start with the basics, the points of the plan that essentially say, “this is a peace plan, and anyone who signs it, has agreed to a peace”. As of the time of writing, at the end of the day, local time, on Sunday the twenty-third in Kyiv, there’s been some progress toward a better deal, by way of those talks in Geneva. According to analysis by the Institute for the Study of War, published on the twenty-first of November, Russian insiders have signaled to global sources that the Kremlin doesn’t even support its own version of the peace proposal, because even that draft was too lenient toward Ukraine. The proposal pledges a family reunification program, and that, quote, “Provisions will be made to address the suffering of victims from the conflict.” All in all, though we do want to emphasize that there are some items in this peace deal that would address important Ukrainian concerns, like the return of prisoners of war and abducted children, the overwhelming balance of the proposal as-written favors Russian interests.

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FAQ

What is the central development in This Is Ukraine’s Moment of Truth.?

What remains uncertain right now?

Why does this matter strategically?

After nearly four years of continuous, all-out war, this is Ukraine’s moment of truth—and the chances of any real victory, are vanishingly small. Ukraine does retain the ability to vouch for its own interests, and although it can’t force the United States to completely change its approach, it can at least draw a line in the sand and refuse to hand Russia the keys to a future re-invasion.

What indicators should observers monitor next?

Sources

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Jackson Reed

Jackson Reed creates and presents analysis focused on military doctrine, strategic competition, and conflict dynamics.

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