Russia is set to reject the new 19-point cease-fire deal drafted by the US and Ukraine but may use disinformation tactics to keep President Trump engaged in continued talks — suggesting the war will last at least through Christmas, sources told The Post on Tuesday.
The White House has said it is working to secure a deal after Special Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff developed a previous controversial 28-point version of the plan that heavily favored Moscow. That plan included input from Kyiv, the Trump administration has insisted.
The proposal, roundly criticized by both sides of the US political aisle and international community because it was so one-sided, was then narrowed down to a 19-point plan acceptable to Ukraine after talks between top Washington and Kyiv officials happened Sunday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting in Moscow on Monday. via REUTERS
But sources told The Post that Russia won’t agree to the 19-point version, as they already weren’t completely satisfied with the broader previous plan.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov publicly went on the offensive Tuesday, reiterating that Moscow will not outright support any plan that deviates from Trump’s original 28-point proposal.
Lavrov sought to contrast the latest plan with discussions between Trump and Putin at the August summit in Anchorage — implying that the Kremlin came away from the meeting with the idea that Trump had agreed to side with Moscow.
“After Anchorage, when we thought these understandings had already been formalized, there was a long pause. And now the pause has been broken by the introduction of this document. . . A whole series of issues there, of course, require clarification,” Lavrov said.
Firefighters work after a drone hit a multistory residential building during Russia’s night attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Tuesday. AP
The Kremlin had praised the original plan as a real pathway to peace, with Lavrov adding that any proposal that deviates from that will not have Moscow’s backing.
“If the spirit and letter of Anchorage are erased from the key understandings we have documented, then, of course, the situation will be fundamentally different,” Lavrov warned, according to the Financial Times.
Still, Moscow may want to appear as if it is not out-right rejecting all US efforts to bring peace to Ukraine for fear of further provoking Trump’s suspicion that the Kremlin is unwilling to play ball, sources said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks at an event last week. REUTERS
Russia may also being planning to use other disinformation tactics, such as issuing vague statements or even signing documents indicating support — without actually committing to end its war, they said.
“Rule of law in Russia is non-existent. Putin historically amends the constitution of Russia whenever it suits him,” said Institute for the Study of War Russia program leader George Barros to The Post. “So any sort of Russian agreement, be it verbal or even legal, must be treated with utmost skepticism.
“It means that whatever the US and Ukraine agree to here has to be absolutely bulletproof and not depend on Russian agreement, but the backing of our own resolve and concrete commitments.
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Trump has been wide-eyed about Russia’s efforts to drag out the war, previously accusing Putin of “tapping him along.”
Myroslava Gogadze, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, added on a call with reporters Tuesday, “From Ukrainian perspective, they don’t see this 19-point plan as something that Russia would accept.
“However, the point of this exercise was not exactly to make an agreement but to throw out that 28 point plan and put some Ukrainian interest in that possible negotiation and show that Ukraine is really willing and want to discuss and negotiate at peace in terms of situation on the ground, you have to look at what is going on.”
Local residents watch their burning home after a drone hit in Kyiv. AP
“From my understanding and what I’m hearing from sources [is that] the American side is very concerned about possible leaks of that 19-point plan. So I mean, we don’t really have a clear understanding of these 19 points,” the expert said.
The 28-point plan prompted heavy bipartisan and international outcry.
It called on Ukraine to shrink its current army of about 2 million active and reserve personnel to just 600,000 — all while ceding the entire Donbas region, the defensive stronghold that Russia has failed to conquer for more than a decade.
It also demanded Ukraine abandon any hope of joining NATO in exchange for vague security guarantees that would do little to stave off another Russian invasion.
Putin has maintained that Ukraine should never be allowed to join NATO, which he described as one of the “root causes” that led him to launch the invasion in 2022.
The original plan, which leaked last week, caused an uproar and forced US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to scramble to amend the proposal.
The new 19-point deal vastly differs from the original, eliminating the cap on Ukraine’s active forces and leaving the door open for the country to join NATO.
The framework came together in recent days following Rubio’s meeting with Ukrainian negotiators in Geneva, with the secretary of state touting it as their most productive meeting yet.
Ukraine agreed to the terms of the peace deal on Tuesday following a meeting with American officials in Abu Dhabi.