The US president has reportedly approved a 28-point peace proposal developed with Russia, which requires significant concessions from Ukraine. Meanwhile, Trump’s special envoy appears to have accidentally posted about the plan – as US army officials visit Kyiv. Follow the latest below.
Thursday 20 November 2025 12:01, UK
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Sky News has spoken to Oleksandr Merezhko, chair of the Ukrainian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, about reports that a US peace plan would ask Ukraine to give up land and weapons.
“We don’t know the details yet, but at first glance it looks like the weirdest plan ever,” Merezhko told Sky News presenter Gareth Barlow.
“To me, this plan looks absolutely unrealistic, and it goes vividly against the red lines of Ukraine.”
Merezhko, who is a member of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People Party, said he hoped that reports of clandestine negotiations without Ukraine were not true.
He added that such secret talks would be “very dangerous” and reminiscent of the pre-Second World War agreement that handed Nazi Germany control over Czechoslovakia.
Watch the full interview below…
We’re still waiting to hear from Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for Russia’s foreign ministry.
She had been due to start her regular briefing for reporters at 11am UK time.
When we get the briefing, you can watch it, with translation, at the top of this live page.
MPs in the House of Commons have now moved on to discuss the reported US peace plan, prompted by a question by Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel.
The peace plan would require Ukraine to give up yet unoccupied territory and downsize its military, reports suggest, as we’ve been covering here in today’s live blog.
In response, Hamish Falconer, a Foreign Office minister, said the “whole House is united… in support of Ukraine”.
The UK’s position remains that an immediate ceasefire is needed and that “international borders must not be changed by force”, Falconer said.
He added:
“There is an illusion, I fear, taking root in Moscow, which is that one more push… will lead to a weakening of resolve in Ukraine, in the UK and across the west.
“That is an illusion. We will remain steadfast in our support for Ukraine.”
An RAF pilot targeted with a laser by a Russian “spy ship” is unharmed, a British defence minister has just been telling MPs.
MPs in the House of Commons in Westminster are currently discussing the Russian “spy ship” Yantar that is near UK waters (see our post at 7.43).
Junior defence minister Al Carns has been standing in for Defence Secretary John Healey to answer an Urgent Question on this from the opposition.
He shared more details on what happened when the ship shone a laser at RAF planes, according to the UK government.
Carns said the laser came from the port side of the ship and was directed at one pilot, who was operating one of the P8 planes monitoring the ship’s movements.
The pilot was medically assessed on returning to the UK, and there have been no injuries or damage to the aircraft, Carns told MPs.
The minister declared: “We will not let the Yantar go unchallenged as it attempts to survey our infrastructure, and we will work with our allies to ensure that Russia knows that any attempt to disrupt or damage underwater infrastructure will be met with the firmest of responses.”
The spokeswoman of Russia’s foreign ministry, Maria Zakharova, will soon start her weekly briefing – she was due to speak at 11am UK time, but seems to be delayed.
She may comment on the latest reports that the US has prepared a peace plan in consultation with Russia, that requires Ukraine to make major concessions.
You can follow live in the stream at the top of the page when she does speak.
By Dominic Waghorn, international affairs editor
US secretary of state Marco Rubio maintains that “ending a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and realistic ideas”.
And yet the Trump administration appears to have been negotiating exclusively and secretly with Russia, producing the fourth or fifth plan effectively demanding Ukraine’s surrender – the handover of the Donbas (like the Sudetenland at Munich in 1938) and the neutering of the Ukrainian army.
The proposals cooked up between Vladimir Putin’s envoy Kirill Dmitriev and Trump’s golf buddy-turned-negotiator Steve Witkoff are non-starters rejected by Ukraine several times already.
Europe has been explicitly told it’s not part of the process, so there’s no buy in from allies. It’s dead in the water.
We are seeing the downside of Trump being overly praised over his massively overrated Gaza ceasefire plan.
It’s made him want another easy win, a surrender plan imposed on Ukraine. This is not serious diplomacy and only encourages Putin that the war is worth continuing.
Whatever the posturing and histrionics, the reality is Trump has worked consistently with Putin against the interests of Ukraine. Over to you Europe (yet again).
The UK armed forces minister has been summoned to make a statement and answer questions in the Commons about the Russian spy ship that is close to UK waters off the north coast of Scotland.
Al Carns is addressing MPs after the Tories and Speaker expressed annoyance that the announcement was made in a speech from Downing Street yesterday, and there was no statement made in parliament.
You can follow full coverage of the statement in the Politics Hub:
Ukraine’s prime minister Yulia Svyrydenko says she has met with US army secretary Dan Driscoll in Ukraine.
She wrote online: “This visit provides an important opportunity for the senior military officials accompanying the secretary to assess the situation on the ground and to witness firsthand the consequences of Russian aggression.”
Earlier, a US official described the trip as a White House plan intended to “restart peace negotiations”, according to our partner network NBC News.
For context: Driscoll is one of two senior US army officials who arrived in Kyiv yesterday to discuss an end to the war.
They are the most senior US military officials to visit the Ukrainian capital since Donald Trump’s inauguration in January.
The US embassy in Kyiv said the pair were there “on behalf of the Trump administration on a fact-finding mission to meet with Ukrainian officials.”
Their visit coincides with the reported finalisation of America’s new 28-point peace plan, which Donald Trump appears to have approved for sharing with Ukraine.
Driscoll is also slated to meet Volodymyr Zelenskyy today, as several media reported.
The Kremlin has reacted to the emerging reports of a 28-point peace plan that the US government apparently developed with Russia.
The Russian government has “nothing new” to say on the matter, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in his daily media briefing.
That’s more or less what he said yesterday when reports of the plan first emerged.
Peskov also repeated the usual Russian talking points on the war.
He said that any peace settlement would have to eliminate the “root causes of the conflict”.
Peskov also wouldn’t be drawn on whether Vladimir Putin was briefed on the peace plan.
There were contacts with the US but currently no negotiations with Washington on such a plan, he added.
We have also got an early reaction from the UK government on the reported 28-point peace plan, which sounds very similar to the one from Brussels (see our post at 8.50).
“The UK government position on this… is really clear that Ukraine absolutely needs to be in these negotiations at the table as an active part of that,” children and families minister Josh MacAlister said on Mornings With Ridge and Frost.
When lead politics presenter Sophy Ridge noted this had not been the case, MacAlister simply said: “Well, they need to be.”
He added the UK government had used its “relationship with the US to make that point”.
But he acknowledged that it “takes a lot of twist and turns as happens with the US administration sometimes” to succeed.
Watch MacAlister’s remarks in full…
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