The 28-point peace plan that was primarily negotiated by U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev grants Russia the two key goals for which it will not stop fighting the war until it achieves. The framework plan states that “Ukraine agrees to enshrine in its constitution that it will not join NATO, and NATO agrees to include in its statutes a provision that Ukraine will not be admitted in the future.” And it allows Russia to protect the rights and safety of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine by granting Moscow de facto control of Donbas.

But the framework agreement is also a lifeline for Ukraine and the president who is standing on the precipice that makes peace possible.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is in a difficult place. When, after being elected in 2019, he tried to negotiate peace that would have given autonomy to the Donbas region but not given Donbas to Russia, nationalists defied him and even threatened him with his life. Zelensky may face an even more difficult situation now. After all the suffering and loss of life, the peace plan requires him to cede all of Donbas to Russia, including the roughly 14 percent that Ukraine still controls, as well as the parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia that Russia currently controls. 

If Zelensky makes the choice that is seen by the nationalists as capitulation, his life and the peace plan are at risk. Unless, of course, there is no choice.

The aggressive manner in which President Donald Trump’s team presented the plan to Zelensky allows him to save himself and the possibility of accepting the peace by allowing him to present the situation as one in which he had no choice. He can claim to have done all he can do to improve the plan by negotiating firmer sovereignty and security, while having no choice but to accept the plan. The lifeline is provided by the “aggressive timeline” and the consequences of saying no.

The Trump team gave Zelensky only days—until Thanksgiving—to accept the plan; though, they have said that the deadline could be extended “if things are working well,” and Secretary of State Marco Rubio has treated the deadline as movable. The original ultimatum would have worked better: If they do not accept the plan by Thanksgiving, the U.S. will end military and intelligence aid to Ukraine.

“Now is one of the most difficult moments in our history,” Zelensky told the nation in a video address. “Now Ukraine may face a very difficult choice: either loss of dignity or the risk of losing a key partner.” If Ukraine refuses to make concessions and turns the deal down, they would face “an extremely difficult winter, the most difficult, and further risks.” The president might have added further loss of life and land because the war is not going well for Ukraine.

The framework agreement provides a lifeline, not just to the president of Ukraine, but to Ukraine. A chorus of critics in the West have tried and convicted the plan—often before they saw the actual draft—as demanding no concessions from Russia and total capitulation from Ukraine. That was not true at the time, and it may be less true now. The American negotiating team stressed that the framework is a “live document” that can still take all positions into account. Since that time, as a result of further discussions with the Ukrainian negotiating team, an “updated and refined peace framework” has been drafted, but not revealed at the time of writing.

According to a statement issued by the White House, the Ukrainian delegation has “affirmed” that “based on the revisions and clarifications presented… their principal concerns — security guarantees, long-term economic development, infrastructure protection, freedom of navigation, and political sovereignty — were thoroughly addressed during the meeting” and their “core strategic requirements” have been addressed. There are now reports, which have not been verified, from the Ukrainian delegation that “very few things are left from the original version.”

Let’s hope the revisions don’t doom the effort to find peace. The original proposal confirms Ukraine’s sovereignty and anchors it firmly in the West. Russia would concede the right for Ukraine to join the European Union and grant it “preferential access to the European market while this issue is being considered.” This amounts to a significant concession over an issue that played a key role in the 2014 crisis that led to the Maidan revolt and, eventually, the coup.

Though the territorial demands made of Ukraine in the agreement are important and painful, they too conceal a lifeline. They allow Ukraine to remain a sovereign nation within the boundaries of the territories that are home to a majority of people who wish to stay in Ukraine. And they allow Kiev to relinquish regions the continued control of which would likely lead to a continuation of civil war after the war with Russia is over.

The territorial demands contain at least two concessions from Russia. The first is that Moscow agrees to de facto recognition of the lands they control rather than the de jure recognition they had been demanding. The second is that Ukraine cedes only part of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces. Territory in those two regions will be frozen along the line of contact, and Ukraine will not be forced to withdraw from the land in those regions they currently still hold.

Russia has also made cultural concessions. In order to protect Ukrainian citizens who are ethnic Russians, Moscow had demanded that Russian be an official national language of Ukraine and that recognition be granted to the Russian Orthodox Church. These demands have been replaced by gentler demands, which should partially tame the nationalist reaction, that “Ukraine will adopt EU rules on religious tolerance and the protection of linguistic minorities.” This lifeline should be seen, not as a Russian demand, but as a requirement for European membership that falls far short of Russia’s demand.

Some of Ukraine’s most important demands for a peace plan were in the area of security. Kiev wanted assurances that they would not be vulnerable to future Russian invasions. The framework agreement, at least in its original form, firmly closes the door on Ukrainian NATO membership. But Ukraine was never going to get NATO membership anyway, and they were prepared to concede this in the first days of the war. 

But Ukraine does receive from Washington, for the first time, some measure of security guarantee. The agreement states that “Ukraine will receive reliable security guarantees,” including “a decisive coordinated military response.” Axios has reported that the U.S. presented Ukraine with a side draft agreement that specifies that a “significant, deliberate, and sustained armed attack” by Russia on Ukraine “shall be regarded as an attack threatening the peace and security of the transatlantic community,” suggesting a NATO Article 5-like promise. If true, that would amount to a major concession by Russia. The Wall Street Journal reports that according to a copy of the side draft agreement that they have seen, the security guarantee includes “intelligence and logistical assistance” or “other steps judged appropriate,” but “doesn’t commit the U.S. to provide direct military assistance.”

The security stipulations in the framework agreement contain a second Russian concession cloaked as a Russian demand. It limits the Ukrainian Armed Forces to 600,000 personnel. Western officials and media have been all over this point, deriding it as a violation of sovereignty and the attempted neutering of Ukraine. But they miss the point. The limitation is nearly a carte blanche because Ukraine is incapable of sustaining a force of that size during peacetime. At time of war, they would circumnavigate the limitation by calling up reserves.

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At the Istanbul talks at the beginning of the war, Russia was demanding an 85,000 limit; Ukraine was asking for 250,000—the Trump plan gives Kiev more than twice that, with a drawdown of 25 percent or less from a war-time level of 750,000-800,000. At 600,000 troops, if Ukraine could actually achieve that level, they would be the largest European army outside of Russia. France’s armed forces, at roughly 200,000 would be half the size of Ukraine’s, with the UK’s 184,000 and Germany’s 181,000 being smaller still. Following the latest round of talks, the Ukrainian delegation is claiming that the U.S. is now willing to walk back the 600,000 cap on troops.

The final painful concession for Ukraine to swallow was the agreement that “all parties involved in this conflict will receive full amnesty for their actions during the war.” This concession has been presented as another act of painful capitulation in the face of Russian atrocities. But, according to The Wall Street Journal, far from being a Ukrainian concession, it was a Ukrainian lifeline. Originally, the draft had “called for an audit of all international aid Ukraine had received.” But, fearing further exposure of corruption, it was the Ukrainian side that asked for the amnesty, according to a senior U.S. official.

There is no doubt that, after nearly four years of war, the peace agreement is painful for Ukraine to accept. But it is also a lifeline that gives Zelensky a way to say yes when a no would threaten the chance to end a war that is only going to lead to further loss of life and land. It leaves a sovereign Ukraine, with 80 percent of its territory, including the territories that wish to stay and won’t continue the civil war, that is firmly anchored in the West, with security guarantees and the largest armed forces in Europe.