Ukraine-Russia peace talks: How US envoys and a 28-point plan failed to secure deal

Diary of Resilience/ Mridula Ghosh/Kyiv

On September 6, President Donald Trump's envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, visited Kyiv for the first time for talks, as the US attempted to restart the peace process after a six-month stalemate. Expectations were low, but people in Kyiv noticed a cessation of shelling in the capital during their presence. Given the round-the-clock attacks in Kyiv since August 27, people could relax for at least a day. Russia, however, did not stop pounding other major cities. A day before, Witkoff and Kushner had held a three-hour meeting with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow to discuss “meaningful plans for further steps”. There was no major breakthrough, neither in Russia nor in Ukraine. Here is why.

In October 2025, Witkoff and Kushner applied their Gaza negotiating model to Ukraine, opening a direct channel with Putin’s entourage, particularly Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev, who met the pair in Miami and worked on the American 28-point plan. This process caused alarm even within the US administration, because it bypassed the traditional interagency mechanism. Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, was not included in preparing the document. Ukraine and the Europeans believed the original text leaned too close to Moscow’s positions. A new negotiation channel was opened nonetheless.

With further negotiations in Geneva, the 28-point plan began to be rewritten in November. On November 30, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Witkoff, Kushner and a Ukrainian delegation led by Rustem Umerov met in Miami. By this point the Americans were discussing not only ending the war but also Ukraine’s future security and economy. Almost five hours in the Kremlin in December yielded no breakthrough.

Talks with the Ukrainians restarted in Miami, covering territories, security guarantees and mechanisms to deter Moscow. Berlin hosted talks with the ‘coalition of the willing’ in December, followed by Paris in January, where negotiations reached a trilateral US-Ukraine-Russia format. A tangible result was the exchange of 314 prisoners—157 each from both countries—after talks in Abu Dhabi in January, though progress was too modest to move the needle on a ceasefire or on the core political questions of occupied territory, including Donbas, and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, or on the nature of security guarantees. The push to fast-track the process—a peace agreement in March followed by a referendum and elections around May—proved unrealistic. Ukraine continued to insist that real security guarantees come first. Talks resumed in Florida, but American attention shifted to Iran and the process stalled.

The channel was revived in late August after CIA Director John Ratcliffe travelled to Moscow to gauge whether Putin was ready for a genuine diplomatic process. For Ukrainians, what matters is not the fact of negotiations but whether the Americans can succeed in actually stopping the aggression. Anything short of that is merely another round of diplomacy, not foreseeable peace.

Against this backdrop, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remarks in English to Putin on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek on August 31, calling for a move “from endless war to end of war”, stood out. Ukrainians welcomed the fact that Modi has told Putin this to his face more than once, first in Samarkand in 2022 with “this is not an era of war”, then in Moscow in July 2024 on the pain of the deaths of innocent children, and now in Bishkek on how every day of war sets humanity back. Analysts were quick to read between the lines, pointing to the recession in Russia and the shrinking pool of working-age people.

In a sad coincidence, heavy Russian shelling on the night of August 31 and the early morning of September 1 killed 12 civilians in Kyiv and the greater Kyiv region. Among them was a 40-year-old Indian citizen from Gujarat, while a 35-year-old man from Telangana was seriously injured. Against this backdrop, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar travelled to Kyiv and Warsaw between September 3 and 5, drawing further attention because of his earlier visit to Moscow on August 23 and 24.

Although Jaishankar had accompanied the prime minister to Kyiv in 2024, this was his first official standalone visit as external affairs minister. Addressing a short press conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, he made several key statements. First, he acknowledged that India-Ukraine ties predated Ukrainian independence, a nod to the substantial contribution of Ukrainian scientists and engineers to projects in India and to the twinning of cities such as Odessa and Kolkata. Second, in a broader shift, he used the word “war” rather than “conflict” to describe the aggression against Ukraine. Third, he invited Sybiha to India for the next session of the Ukraine-India intergovernmental commission on trade, economic, scientific, social and humanitarian cooperation, co-chaired by them. On my question about a possible visit by President Volodymyr Zelensky to India, Jaishankar did not commit to specifics but did not rule out the option and urged the Ukrainian side to express interest.

The most significant issues on the table were Black Sea navigation, where a number of Indian sailors were killed in Russian shelling, the smooth supply of grain, pesticides and other goods from Ukraine and cooperation in education, health and agriculture. The amicable atmosphere was undercut somewhat by jet-powered drones over Kyiv, and Jaishankar likely heard the loud blasts of interception during his short stay. In sharp contrast, the report card on two years of the India-Poland Strategic Partnership Action Plan’s implementation, presented by Jaishankar and Polish deputy prime minister and foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski in Warsaw, was impressive, with bilateral trade reaching $6.3 billion last year against Ukraine-India trade of $2.6 billion over the same period.

Diaspora diplomacy in both Poland and Ukraine could gain more traction if high-level visits made room, even briefly, to include the diaspora in their programmes. They hold the keys to ground reality and act as informal ambassadors in their fields, and can achieve results where bureaucracies fail or falter.

Visits by dignitaries give relations fresh starts, though building them takes years of work. High-level visits have long been the weak link between Ukraine and India. President Leonid Kravchuk visited India in 1992, followed by president Shankar Dayal Sharma’s visit to Ukraine in 1993. Nine years passed before president Leonid Kuchma travelled to India in 2002. President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam then made his landmark visit to Kyiv, Dnipro and other cities in 2005. It took seven more years for president Viktor Yanukovych to travel to India. After a further gap of 12 years, Modi’s 2024 trip, arranged at barely a month's notice, was a landmark in itself.

In diplomacy, signals matter. On the war in Ukraine, India has excelled at signalling, especially on the philosophical foundations and realisation that stopping the war is like the oxygen for peace. What must follow now is real action.

The author, formerly with the UN, is a professor of international relations in Kyiv.