Donald Trump’s original 28-point peace plan would have left Ukraine a “tethered goat” and so weak that Vladimir Putin would almost certainly have restarted the war, says an ex-MI6 chief.
Sir Alex Younger, who was head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service from 2014 to 2020, was highly critical of the initial blueprint to end the war which Putin launched in February 2022.
But he believes it could be the basis for negotiations to stop the bloodshed which has cost hundreds of thousands of lives.
“The original proposals are lopsided, essentially Moscow talking points,” Sir Alex told BBC radio.
“That would render Ukraine essentially a tethered goat, a juicy target with little chance of defending itself which would almost guarantee, I think, that the war would restart because Russia would have engineered weakness that it would be bound to try to exploit.
“So the question now is not really so much can Ukraine sign this deal, these 28 points, they obviously can’t.
“It’s whether there is enough here to work with as a negotiating framework.”
He added: “None of us should be dismissing this out of hand.
“It’s an attempt to stop the killing and that’s a good thing but we have got to make it less lopsided.”
Earlier, Russian forces carried out a “massive” drone attack on Ukraine's second-largest city, killing four people and injuring several others according to officials.
"There is a massive attack on Kharkiv," Mayor Ihor Terekhov wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Mr Terekhov said four people had been killed, including one person whose body was recovered from under rubble. Regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said 12 people were injured, including two children aged 11 and 12.
Fifteen strikes were recorded in six areas of the city in northeastern Ukraine.
Kharkiv, located 18 miles from the Russian border, withstood Russian attempts to capture it soon after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and has since been a frequent target of attacks.
Meanwhile, the governor of Dnipropetrovsk region farther south said two people were killed in a Russian strike on the town of Marhanets.
Russia’s latest attacks come as the United States and Ukraine are set to continue work on Monday on a plan to end the war after agreeing to modify an earlier proposal that was widely seen as too favourable to Moscow.
The two sides said in a joint statement they had drafted a “refined peace framework” after talks in Geneva on Sunday, without providing specifics.
The White House separately said the Ukrainian delegation had told them it “reflects their national interests” and “addresses their core strategic requirements,” although Kyiv did not issue a statement of its own.
It was not clear how the updated plan would handle a host of issues, including how to guarantee Ukraine's security against ongoing threats from Russia.
The United States and Ukraine said they would continue “intensive work” ahead of Thursday’s deadline, although US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who led the American delegation during the talks, was flying back to Washington late on Sunday.
Trump has kept up the pressure on Ukraine to reach a deal. On Sunday, he said Ukraine had shown “zero gratitude” for American efforts over the war, prompting Ukrainian officials to emphasise their thanks for Trump's support.
Trump previously set a Thursday deadline for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to accept a peace plan, but Mr Rubio said on Sunday that deadline might not be set in stone.
Mr Zelensky could travel to the United States as soon as this week to discuss the most sensitive aspects of the plan with Trump, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The initial 28-point proposal put forth by the United States last week called on Ukraine to cede territory, accept limits on its military and abandon its ambitions to join NATO. Those terms would amount to capitulation for many Ukrainians after nearly four years of fighting in Europe's deadliest conflict since World War II.
The original plan came as a surprise to US officials across the administration, and two sources said on Saturday it was crafted at an October meeting in Miami that included special envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Kirill Dmitriev, a Russian envoy who is under US sanctions.
Democratic lawmakers have criticised it as essentially a Russian wish list, while the former UK Defence Secretary Sir Ben Wallace condemned it as “another attempt by the Trump and the Kremlin to do a sort of grubby stitch-up”.
However Mr Rubio has insisted that Washington authored the plan with input from both sides in the war.
European allies said they were not involved in crafting the original plan, and they released a counter-proposal on Sunday that would ease some of the proposed territorial concessions and include a NATO-style security guarantee from the United States for Ukraine if it is attacked.
The talks come as Russia has slowly gained ground in some regions, while Ukraine's power and gas facilities have been pummeled by drone and missile attacks, leaving millions of people without water, heating and power for hours each day.
