What Next | Could We Get Peace In Ukraine?

Slate News

Slate Podcasts

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.6 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 25 November 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Trump administration has announced a 28-point plan to end the war in Ukraine that involves ceding territory, giving up on joining NATO and reducing its military—in essence an extremely, even suspiciously, friendly deal for Russia and Russian demands. How does Ukraine play this without losing a powerful ally or the war? Guest: Fred Kaplan, Slate’s War Stories correspondent. Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:36.2	So here's a question I'm having a hard time answering.
0:39.7	Is this moment right now some kind of turning point for Ukraine?
0:47.9	Tonight, an ultimatum, nearly four years into this bloody war.
0:52.7	Going into the weekend, it seemed like maybe.
0:56.0	But then again, we've been here before.
0:59.0	President Trump now telling Ukraine,
1:01.0	accept a new peace plan by Thanksgiving Day or risk losing U.S. support.
1:08.0	The choice for Ukraine's leadership, President Trump implied, was between accepting a new 28-point peace plan or going it alone against Russia.
1:18.8	Volodymyr Zelensky called it a choice between losing Ukraine's dignity or losing a key partner.
1:26.7	Slate's Fred Kaplan thinks Zelensky is right here, for what it's worth.
1:31.6	He spent the weekend trying to figure out where this 28-point plan even came from.
1:37.2	Well, I wrote a column on Friday saying that the peace plan amounts to Ukrainian surrender.
1:44.5	Now we learn that this whole document was just something that was arranged by Steve Whitkoff
1:53.3	and Jared Kushner, as they were flying back from the Middle East,
	...

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