# Mariupol Plan The **Mariupol Plan** was a Kremlin-favorable "peace plan" for eastern Ukraine that [[Konstantin Kilimnik]] — [[Paul Manafort]]'s longtime deputy in Kyiv, later named by the Senate Intelligence Committee as a Russian intelligence officer — carried to Manafort while Manafort was chairman of the [[Donald Trump]] campaign, and kept pushing until mid-2018. Its core idea was to fold the Russian-occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions into an **"autonomous republic" inside Ukraine with [[Viktor Yanukovych]] installed at its head** — the pro-Russian president Ukrainians had driven out in 2014, and Manafort's own former client. It matters for three reasons. It is the most concrete policy content that passed between the Trump campaign's chairman and a Russian intelligence asset. Manafort was found to have lied to prosecutors about it. And its shape — special status for the occupied east, a Moscow-friendly figure running it, Washington's blessing as the trigger — recurs in nearly every plan to end the war since, from the [[Minsk Agreements]] to the [[28-Point Peace Plan]]. The full chronology sits in [[Ukraine War Timeline]]. > [!warning] It was not the 2016 convention fight > The Mariupol Plan is often conflated with the Trump campaign's intervention at the July 2016 Republican convention. **They are two separate episodes, in that order.** The GOP platform's Ukraine plank was softened on **July 11, 2016**, in the national-security subcommittee in Cleveland, from "providing lethal defensive weapons" to "appropriate assistance" — see [[2016 Republican Platform Ukraine Amendment]]. The staffer who did it was [[J.D. Gordon]]; no Mueller or Senate account read for this page gives Manafort a role in that change, and Manafort publicly denied one. The convention ran **July 18–21**. The Mariupol Plan first appears in the record **after** it: Kilimnik's email of **July 29** and the cigar-club meeting of **August 2**. Reading the two as one Russia-friendly drift in the campaign's Ukraine posture is fair interpretation. Saying Manafort pushed the Mariupol Plan at the convention is not supported by the documentary record. ## What the plan proposed - **Mueller's version:** Manafort and Kilimnik "discussed a plan to resolve the ongoing political problems in Ukraine by creating an autonomous republic in its more industrialized eastern region of Donbas, and having Yanukovych... elected to head that republic." - **Senate Intelligence Committee version:** merge the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts into one autonomous republic inside Ukraine, with Yanukovych, a Donetsk native, as its prime minister. One Kilimnik draft named the trigger outright: "A key driver... can be an initiative of the President of the United States Donald Trump proposing to create the (Autonomous Republic of Donbas)." - **What Manafort himself called it:** [[Mueller Report]]s that Kilimnik delivered "a peace plan for Ukraine that Manafort acknowledged to the Special Counsel's Office was a 'backdoor' way for Russia to control part of eastern Ukraine." "Backdoor" is Mueller's summary of Manafort's admission to prosecutors, not a quote from 2016. - **Why the US mattered:** "Both men believed the plan would require candidate Trump's assent to succeed (were he to be elected President)." ## Where the name comes from The name came from **Kilimnik himself**. In a February 2017 interview with RFE/RL's Christopher Miller, he called it a "Mariupol plan," after the Ukrainian-held port city on the Sea of Azov that sat just behind the line of contact. In that interview he said it would bring Yanukovych back as a regional leader in Donetsk and Luhansk, and he claimed it was "something that Manafort was not involved with." Mueller's evidence later showed otherwise. Mariupol itself was destroyed in the [[Siege of Mariupol]] in 2022. ## Chronology | Date | Event | |---|---| | **Jul 11, 2016** | *Separate episode:* GOP platform subcommittee softens the Ukraine plank ([[2016 Republican Platform Ukraine Amendment]]) | | **Jul 18–21, 2016** | Republican convention in Cleveland nominates Trump ([[Trump 2016 Nomination]]) | | **Jul 29, 2016** | Kilimnik emails Manafort: "I met today with the guy who gave you your biggest black caviar jar several years ago" — the opening of the approach that led to the August 2 meeting | | **Aug 2, 2016** | Manafort, Kilimnik and [[Rick Gates]] meet at a cigar club in Manhattan (widely reported as the Grand Havana Room). Kilimnik delivers the plan; Manafort shares internal campaign polling and discusses battleground states. The men leave by separate exits as a precaution | | **Dec 8, 2016** | Kilimnik writes: "Russians at the very top level are in principle not against this plan... All that is required to start the process is a very minor 'wink' (or slight push) from DT saying 'he wants peace in Ukraine and Donbass back in Ukraine' and a decision to be a 'special representative' and manage this process." | | **Jan 2017** | Kilimnik travels to Washington around the inauguration and meets Manafort | | **Feb 23, 2017** | Kilimnik names the "Mariupol plan" to RFE/RL and denies Manafort's involvement | | **Feb 26, 2017** | Manafort meets Kilimnik in Madrid; Kilimnik had flown in from Moscow. Manafort first denied the meeting to prosecutors, then admitted it when shown documents | | **Early 2018** | Now under indictment, Manafort has his longtime pollster draft a survey in Ukraine, sends the pollsters "a three-page primer on the plan sent by Kilimnik," and works with Kilimnik on the questions. A February 2018 file is titled "New initiative for Peace copy" | | **Summer 2018** | Per Mueller, Kilimnik is still promoting the plan to the U.S. executive branch, including the State Department | | **Feb 13, 2019** | Judge Amy Berman Jackson finds Manafort lied to prosecutors, including about his dealings with Kilimnik | | **Apr 18, 2019** | Mueller report released | | **Aug 18, 2020** | Senate Intelligence Committee Vol. 5 released | | **Apr 15, 2021** | Treasury sanctions Kilimnik | ## The lies Manafort told prosecutors that he had called the idea "crazy," that the discussion ended there, and that he never raised it again after August 2, 2016. The documents showed a plan he was still working on in 2018. On February 13, 2019, Judge Amy Berman Jackson found that Manafort had breached his plea agreement by lying on three of five disputed subjects: 1. His interactions and communications with Kilimnik 2. A $125,000 payment to his law firm 3. Another Justice Department investigation She did not find the government had proven lies about Kilimnik's role in the witness-tampering conspiracy or about Manafort's contacts with the administration. Mueller's report summarizes the first finding as lies "concerning his interactions and communications with Konstantin Kilimnik about Trump Campaign polling data and a peace plan for Ukraine." During the breach hearing, prosecutor Andrew Weissmann told the court the August 2 meeting went "very much to the heart of what the Special Counsel's Office is investigating." ## What investigators found — and did not - **Mueller:** "the investigation did not uncover evidence of Manafort's passing along information about Ukrainian peace plans to the candidate or anyone else in the Campaign or the Administration." The office also said it could not reliably determine why Manafort shared the internal polling data with Kilimnik. - **Senate Intelligence Committee, Vol. 5 (Aug 2020):** called Kilimnik "a Russian intelligence officer" who "likely served as a channel to Manafort for Russian intelligence services," and called Manafort's access and willingness to share information "a grave counterintelligence threat." It found the plan was pursued "at least until early 2018," and that Kilimnik claimed it had the Kremlin's support. - **Treasury, Apr 15, 2021:** designated Kilimnik as "a known Russian Intelligence Services agent implementing influence operations," who "provided the Russian Intelligence Services with sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy." It added: "At Yanukovych's direction, Kilimnik sought to institute a plan that would return Yanukovych to power in Ukraine." The release does not name Manafort. ## The family resemblance The Mariupol Plan is one of a series of plans that share one design: **special status for the occupied east, sovereignty traded for a halt to the shooting, and Washington's endorsement as the lever.** - **[[Minsk Agreements]] (2015).** Minsk II gave the occupied districts "special status" and local elections before Kyiv could regain control of its own border. - **Mariupol Plan (2016–18).** An autonomous Donbas republic with Yanukovych at its head, launched by a "wink" from Trump. - **Artemenko plan (Jan–Feb 2017).** Brought to [[Michael Flynn]]'s office by [[Michael Cohen]] and [[Felix Sater]], it proposed a Russian withdrawal from eastern Ukraine and a Ukrainian referendum on leasing Crimea to Russia for 50 or 100 years *[single-sourced via RFE/RL's account of the NYT report]*. - **[[28-Point Peace Plan]] (Nov 2025).** Drafted after [[Kirill Dmitriev]]'s October 2025 Miami meetings with [[Steve Witkoff]]'s team, it made Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk "de facto Russian" and turned the part of Donetsk still held by Ukraine into a "demilitarized buffer zone." The through-line is a thesis, not a finding: the Kremlin's preferred settlement has been stable for a decade, and what changes is which American channel it travels through. ## See Also - [[Ukraine War Timeline]] — the full chronology, 2014 to present - [[Paul Manafort Ukraine Operations]] — the decade of Yanukovych work behind the plan - [[Konstantin Kilimnik]] · [[Paul Manafort]] · [[Viktor Yanukovych]] - [[2016 Republican Platform Ukraine Amendment]] — the separate convention episode - [[Mueller Investigation]] · [[Russian Election Interference]] · [[Trump-Russia Arc Timeline]]