All eyes on Russia as it weighs Ukraine peace plan with caution

All eyes are now on Russia's response to a fledgling peace plan to end the war in Ukraine after Kyiv appeared willing to move forward with a U.S.-backed framework.

U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to travel to Moscow next week to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Putin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters Wednesday that "the content [of the U.S. plan] will be discussed," at the meeting, and claimed Russian officials had not discussed a U.S.-backed plan when talks were held with U.S. officials in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday.

"We, the Russian side, have not yet discussed any documents with anyone specifically ... We've agreed to a meeting with Mr. Witkoff. I hope he won't be alone. Other representatives of the U.S. team working on the Ukrainian dossier will be there," he said in comments translated by NBC News and reported by state news agency TASS.

Ushakov said Russia had not yet officially received the U.S.-backed draft deal for Ukraine but had seen an unofficial version.

Regarding the plan it had seen, Ushakov said the Kremlin viewed some aspects of the plan positively while "several of its points require serious analysis."

Sergei Ryabkov, Russia's deputy foreign minister, said Moscow welcomed U.S. efforts on peace proposals but said "there are no concessions on key issues on the Ukraine settlement," in comments reported by Reuters on Wednesday.

Earlier today, Putin's Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov warned against jumping to conclusions regarding an end to the war, which Russia launched when it invaded Ukraine in Feb. 2022.

"Wait. It's too early to say that," Peskov told reporters, state news agency TASS reported, when asked whether this was the closest Russia and Ukraine had ever been to concluding a peace agreement. 

CNBC has contacted the Kremlin for further comment and is awaiting a response.

Multiple outlets reported Tuesday that a Ukrainian delegation that had held talks with U.S. officials in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday appeared to tentatively support the basis of a U.S.-backed peace plan — though key details remained unresolved.

Reports from ABC News and CBS News both cited an unnamed U.S. official who said that the Ukrainians "have agreed" to the deal, while noting that some points still need to be ironed out. It was not clear if the same U.S. official was quoted in both stories.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said later Tuesday that Kyiv was ready to advance the peace framework, Reuters reported, citing a copy of a speech the president gave to a coalition of allied countries.

President Donald Trump said at the White House on Tuesday, "I think we're getting very close to a deal. We'll find out ... I think we're making progress."

In a Truth Social post later Tuesday afternoon, Trump said, "there are only a few remaining points of disagreement."

Trump's post came several days after U.S. officials met with a Ukrainian delegation in Geneva last weekend for talks that resulted in significant revisions to Washington's initially proffered 28-point peace plan.

That plan — which was widely seen as being highly favorable to Russia, the invading force — "has been fine-tuned, with additional input from both sides," Trump acknowledged in Tuesday's post.

"Our delegations reached a common understanding on the core terms of the agreement discussed in Geneva," Ukraine National Security Secretary Rustem Umerov said in an X post.

It's far from certain the Russia will assent to the revised peace plan, which has reportedly been narrowed to 19 points.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said any agreement must reflect the understandings reached by Trump and Putin during their August summit in Alaska.

On Tuesday, officials from Kyiv and Moscow reportedly met with Driscoll in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates.

The Kremlin was tight-lipped about the discussions taking place there, with Dmitry Peskov telling reporters Tuesday that "we still have nothing to say" and that the Kremlin was "monitoring media reports."

"We understand that negotiations between the Americans and the Ukrainians are ongoing. We understand that some adjustments are being made to the text that was published; we understand that the text that we unofficially received earlier has already undergone changes, but at some point, the time will probably come when we will also establish contacts with the Americans and we will officially receive some information," Peskov said. "For now, we have no new information."

The initial, 28-point plan, which Ukraine had not participated in, included controversial terms, such as Ukraine making territorial concessions by handing over the eastern Donbas region that is partially occupied by Russian forces.

The original deal also demanded that Ukraine reduce its army by 50%, along with other proposals that crossed Ukraine's "red lines."

Trump had pushed Ukraine to accept that deal by the U.S. Thanksgiving Day holiday on Nov. 27, prompting Zelenskyy to declare on Friday that Ukraine faced the difficult choice between "losing its dignity or losing a key partner," referring to the U.S.

That deadline appears to have been scrapped. It was unclear how many of the original deal's points remained in the latest version of a potential peace agreement.