WASHINGTON — The US administration has drafted a new 28-point plan and held quiet and deep consultations with Russia in a renewed push to restart peace talks aimed at ending the Ukraine crisis, according to US online media outlet Axios on Wednesday.

The plan is inspired by US President Donald Trump's push for a deal in Gaza, Axios said.

According to the report, US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff is leading the effort to craft the plan, which is organized into four broad sections: peace in Ukraine, security guarantees, security in Europe, and future US relations with Russia and Ukraine.

How the plan addresses some of the most contentious issues, particularly territorial control in eastern Ukraine, remains unclear, as does the reaction from Kyiv, said the report.

In late October, Witkoff and other members of Trump's team discussed the plan extensively with Russian President Vladimir Putin's special envoy Kirill Dmitriev in Miami, Florida, said the report.

Witkoff discussed the plan with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's national security adviser Rustem Umerov in a meeting earlier this week in Miami, a Ukrainian official confirmed to Axios.

Efforts welcomed

Europe welcomes peace efforts in Ukraine but expects to be consulted on them, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said on Thursday, adding that Ukraine should not have its ability to defend itself limited.

However, the Kremlin said on Wednesday that contacts with the United States continued, but there were no new developments to announce on a possible peace plan to end the conflict in Ukraine.

After numerous media reports that the US had drafted a peace plan which proposed Kyiv give up some territory, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters there was nothing new to announce since the August summit between Putin and Trump.

Peskov said that contacts with the US people continued but that sufficient work for another summit to take place had not yet been done.

In Turkiye, Zelensky said on Wednesday he hoped to resume prisoner swaps with Russia by the end of this year, speaking alongside his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

"We hope to restore exchanges by the end of the year, to bring back a significant number of prisoners," he said during a visit to Ankara aimed at reviving peace efforts.

Meanwhile, in Italy, the highest court on Wednesday approved the extradition to Germany of a Ukrainian man suspected of setting off explosions that damaged the Nord Stream pipelines between Russia and Germany more than three years ago.

The defense lawyer for 49-year-old Serhii Kuznietsov said that his client would be turned over to German authorities within the next few days, after the Cassation Court rejected a final defense appeal. Defense lawyer Nicola Canestrini expressed confidence that his client would be acquitted at the trial.