A document reportedly prepared for the Kremlin outlines a strategy for Russia to undermine the United States' negotiating position on Ukraine by creating tensions between the Trump administration and other nations. The document also details Moscow’s continued efforts to dismantle the Ukrainian government.
The document, obtained by The Washington Post, stated that Russia should pursue a plan that includes stoking divisions between the US and its allies while maintaining its military and political objectives in Ukraine.
The document was prepared for the Kremlin in February by a Moscow-based think tank with ties to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), and lays out Russia’s hardline conditions for ending the conflict in Ukraine.It advises the Kremlin to weaken the US negotiating position by exploiting tensions between the Trump administration and European allies and China while continuing efforts to dismantle the Ukrainian state. It also proposed giving the US access to Russian minerals, including in the Ukrainian territories it occupies.
The document dismisses President Donald Trump’s preliminary goal of achieving a peace deal within 100 days as “impossible to realize” and asserts that “a peaceful resolution of the Ukraine crisis cannot happen before 2026.”
Additionally, it rejects proposals for deploying peacekeepers to Ukraine, a suggestion some European nations have supported. Instead, it insists that Russia’s sovereignty over seized Ukrainian territories be recognized. It also calls for the establishment of a buffer zone in northeastern Ukraine along the Russian border with Bryansk and Belgorod, as well as a demilitarized zone in southern Ukraine near Crimea, affecting the Odessa region.
The document also outlines the need for "the complete dismantling" of the current Ukrainian government.
Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Kremlin “was not aware of such recommendations,” and said they were “extremely contradictory." He added, “We are working with more-considered options.”
