US and Ukraine agree to change draft of peace plan that appeased Russia

US and Ukrainian officials said Sunday, local time, that they made progress in Geneva working through a new version of a controversial plan to end Russia’s war in Ukraine ahead of a Thanksgiving deadline imposed by the United States, while President Donald Trump faced mounting criticism from lawmakers and his own base over the proposal.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is leading the US delegation, sought to downplay widespread claims that the plan was originally written by the Russian side.

The leaked draft ignores many of Kyiv’s red lines: It would force Ukraine to shrink its army, give up land that Russia hasn’t managed to grab in nearly four years of war and would bar the presence of NATO troops, among other concessions. But US officials said the draft agreement has since been revised.

Mr Rubio told reporters in Geneva that the initial plan was an early document that had received “input from both sides.”

The talks with Ukrainians on Sunday were the most positive so far, Mr Rubio said, but he declined to describe more details, citing the ongoing nature of negotiations. “This is a living, breathing document. Every day, with input, it changes,” he said.

The top US diplomat also de-emphasised the Thanksgiving deadline, suggesting more negotiations could be ahead. More talks are planned for this week, but details have not been released.

“The deadline is that we want to get this down as soon as possible,” Mr Rubio said. “We’d love it to be Thursday.

The important point today is that we have made substantial progress.”

US special envoy Steve Witkoff, Mr Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who helped negotiate a peace deal in Gaza, and Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll joined Mr Rubio as they met with the Ukrainian delegation.

After the meeting, the White House released a joint statement that both the US and Ukraine found the discussions in Geneva to be “highly productive” and involved drafting an “updated and refined framework.”

The two countries also reaffirmed that any future agreement “must fully uphold Ukraine’s sovereignty and deliver a sustainable and just peace.”

In a separate readout of the talks, the White House said the Ukrainian representatives made revisions and clarifications to the draft, and that their principal concerns were addressed, including “security guarantees, long-term economic development, infrastructure protection, freedom of navigation, and political sovereignty.”

European officials, including those from France and Germany, have been working on a counterproposal, according to a document obtained by The Washington Post, which would begin territorial negotiations at the front line - not beyond it - and give Ukraine “robust, legally binding security guarantees, including from the US.”

Mr Rubio said he met with national security advisers of key European partners in Geneva, adding that they would have heard the “incredible amount of positivity from both the Ukrainian and American side about the progress we’ve made today.”

In a Sunday tweet, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said he and other leaders were ready to negotiate on the 28-point plan. “However, before we start our work, it would be good to know for sure who is the author of the plan and where it was created,” he added.

“We are coordinating our positions, and it is important that there is dialogue, that diplomacy has been reinvigorated,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on social media on Sunday. He said he had just spoken to French President Emmanuel Macron, adding that Ukraine was grateful to Mr Trump for his efforts and for US leadership.

As the talks were ongoing, Mr Trump took to social media on Sunday morning to express his frustration over the delay in ending the war - something he claimed on the campaign trail he could do in “one day” and would accomplish before even returning to office.

Mr Trump said on Truth Social that he “inherited” the war, that Ukraine’s leaders were not sufficiently grateful for US assistance, and that European countries were still buying oil from Russia. He did not criticise Russian President Vladimir Putin in the message.

Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, Olha Stefanishyna, told CBS’ Face the Nation that a separate framework document outlines potential US security guarantees to Ukraine, including pledges that Washington and its allies would assist if Ukraine faces aggression from Russian territory.

But, sounding sceptical, she noted that the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 began from Belarus’ territory, and that security pledges Kyiv received in 1994 after giving up nuclear weapons stationed on its territory were not honoured.

“We are a very complicated partner for (the) US because we also had a lot of different experiences,” Ms Stefanishyna said.

Ukraine was uninvolved in the drafting of the document that would dictate its future, which was delivered in Kyiv on Thursday by a US military delegation led by Mr Driscoll.

US lawmakers worried the initial proposal would further destabilise global security by rewarding Russia after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine - raising questions over why Mr Trump needs the deal signed so urgently, even if it comes at the expense of American and Ukrainian interests.

“Some people better get fired on Monday for the gross buffoonery we just witnessed over the last four days,” Representative Don Bacon (Republican-Nebraska) posted on X on Saturday. “This hurt our country and undermined our alliances, and encouraged our adversaries.”

A group of senators told reporters at a security conference in Canada on Saturday night that they had spoken with Mr Rubio by phone and learned that the 28-point plan was not, in fact, spearheaded by the United States. Senator Angus King (Independent-Maine) said that according to Mr Rubio, the plan “is not the administration’s position. It is essentially the wish list of the Russians.”

Mr Rubio “made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” Senator Mike Rounds (Republican-South Dakota) said during the Halifax International Security Forum. “It is not our recommendation. It is not our peace plan.”

Mr Rubio denied the senators’ statements hours later, writing on X: “The peace proposal was authored by the US. It is offered as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations.”

State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott called the senators’ comments “blatantly false.” In separate statements, Mr Pigott and the White House said the plan “was authored by the United States, with input from both the Russians and Ukrainians.”

The exchange marks another confusing development surrounding the plan that leaked last week and immediately sparked alarm over its origins on both sides of the Atlantic. The White House has said the plan was drafted by Mr Witkoff and Kirill Dmitriev, the Russian special envoy.

Representative Michael McCaul (Republican-Texas) said Sunday he had spoken with Mr Rubio, along with several senators, and that he was told the plan was “a United States document with input from Ukraine and from Russia,” though he acknowledged that it appeared the “inception” of the plan came from Mr Witkoff and Mr Dmitriev.

Mr McCaul, a long-serving Republican who has clashed with the president on foreign policy issues, said on ABC’s This Week that the negotiations would be ongoing and that he believed the US was flexible on its deadlines.

“About 80 per cent of this deal, I think, they’re going to find agreement with as they go to Geneva,” Mr McCaul added. “The problem is going to be the 20 per cent of really tough items to negotiate.”

Senator Mark R. Warner (Democrat-Virginia) sharply criticised the early plan, telling ABC Sunday morning that “Neville Chamberlain’s giving in to Hitler (before) World War II looks strong in comparison” and that the plan resembles a set of “Russian talking points.”

A US official, who spoke like others on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that the President hasn’t been as involved in the specifics.

“You tell him, ‘I’m going to try to get a deal.’ He will say, ‘Great, go see what you can do.’ And that’s the level of detail he has,” the official said, later adding, “It’s been absolute chaos all day because even different parts of the White House don’t know what’s going on. It’s embarrassing.”

A European official said it seemed Washington was “almost taken by surprise on the whole thing” on Friday.

“Usually when there’s more to it, it feels different. … Our feeling has been, DC has been taken by surprise by Witkoff’s actions,” the official said.

Defenders of the Trump administration’s dealmaking efforts note that time is not on Ukraine’s side and say an agreement will protect Ukrainian sovereignty from Russia’s larger army, which continues to seize more territory from Kyiv.

“People trying to tear this agreement down just want the war to continue,” said Dan Caldwell, a former Pentagon official who worked on Ukraine issues under the Trump administration.

“There is this persistent delusion that the United States has a massive stockpile of munitions that we can dump in Ukraine, that there’s a magic sanctions package that will force the Russians to end the war and that Ukraine has the capacity to continue this war until they achieve total victory.”

“That’s just not the case so the constructive thing to do is consider some of the realistic proposals US officials are putting forward,” he said.

Speaking with reporters Saturday, Mr Trump said Mr Zelensky had until Thanksgiving to agree to the plan or “continue to fight his little heart out” - only without American aid.

But privately, the Trump administration was “not treating this plan as immovable,” said a person familiar with the negotiations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly. It has been “communicated to the Ukrainians that there is some room for negotiations.”

Still, Washington “also made clear that they want an agreement soon” and “the threat to suspend US assistance is dead serious,” the official said.

Questions remain over whether Mr Trump’s team can reach an agreement with Ukrainian and European partners before the US-imposed deadline arrives. Once again, Ukraine must try to convince an unpredictable White House that it’s Russia that must make concessions to its maximalist demands - not Ukraine.

“Any appeasement of Russia as the aggressor, any attempts at putting pressure on Ukraine as the victim of this aggression, is morally reprehensible and an outrage against human decency,” more than four dozen European and Ukrainian leaders wrote in a letter sent to Mr Trump over the weekend.

“To bow before Russia is to abandon shared values and plunge the free world into anarchy and chaos. Strong American leadership is the only hope.”

But, they added, a “cowed America can never be great again. A cowed America can never be first.”

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