Top European and Ukrainian envoys conferred in Geneva over night ahead of talks with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio over President Donald Trump's proposal to end Russia’s war on Ukraine.
The head of the Ukrainian delegation, presidential chief of staff Andrii Yermak, wrote on social media that they held their first meeting with the national security advisers from the UK, France and Germany. The allies have rallied around Kyiv in a push to revise the plan, which is seen as favouring Moscow.
"The next meeting is with the US delegation. We are in a very constructive mood," Yermak said. "We continue working together to achieve a lasting and just peace for Ukraine."
Rubio was expected to join the talks together with Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff.
Before the meeting, Trump on Sunday used a lengthy online post to blast Ukraine for a lack of gratitude for US military assistance, while notably shying away from criticising Russia.
"With strong and proper US and Ukrainian LEADERSHIP," Trump wrote, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine "would have NEVER HAPPENED."
Trump also took a swipe at US allies in Europe, writing, "UKRAINE 'LEADERSHIP' HAS EXPRESSED ZERO GRATITUDE FOR OUR EFFORTS, AND EUROPE CONTINUES TO BUY OIL FROM RUSSIA."
After Trump's post, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was "grateful" for US-led efforts on security and praised the US leader directly as talks continued.
"The leadership of the United States is important, we are grateful for everything that America and President Trump are doing for security, and we remain as constructive as possible," Zelensky said in a post on Telegram.
In an earlier post, Zelensky also said that there was an understanding the US would take into account "a number of elements" in a peace deal that are important for Ukraine, but did not elaborate further.
"There have already been brief reports from the team about the results of the first meetings and conversations," he said. "There is now an understanding that the American proposals may take into account a number of elements based on the Ukrainian vision and are critically important for Ukraine’s national interests."
Rustem Umerov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council and a member of Ukraine's Geneva delegation, wrote that although the peace plan proposals were still being finalised, they included "many Ukrainian priorities."
"We appreciate our American partners working closely with us to understand our concerns to reach this critical point and we expect to make more progress today," he said.
Ukraine and allies have ruled out territorial concessions
The 28-point blueprint drawn up by the US to end the nearly four-year war has sparked alarm in Kyiv and European capitals. Zelensky has said his country could face a stark choice between standing up for its sovereign rights and preserving the American support it needs.
The proposal, originating from negotiations between Washington and Moscow, acquiesces to many Russian demands that Zelensky has categorically rejected on dozens of occasions, including giving up large pieces of territory.
The Ukrainian leader has vowed that his people "will always defend" their home.
Speaking before Sunday’s talks, Alice Rufo, France’s minister delegate at the Defence Ministry, told broadcaster France Info that key points of discussion would include the plan’s restrictions on the Ukrainian army, which she described as "a limitation on its sovereignty."
"Ukraine must be able to defend itself," she said. "Russia wants war and waged war many times in fact over the past years."
Speaking to reporters outside the White House on Saturday, Trump said the US proposal was not his "final offer."
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"I would like to get to peace. It should have happened a long time ago. The Ukraine war with Russia should have never happened," Trump said. "One way or the other, we have to get it ended."
Trump didn’t explain what he meant by the plan not being his final offer and the White House didn’t respond to a request for clarification.
Rubio's reported comments cause confusion
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Sunday that Warsaw was ready to work on the plan with the leaders of Europe, Canada and Japan, but also said that it "would be good to know for sure who is the author of the plan and where was it created."
Some US lawmakers said Saturday that Rubio had described the plan as a Russian "wish list" rather than a Washington-led proposal.
The bipartisan group of senators told a news conference that they had spoken to Rubio about the peace plan after he reached out to some of them while on his way to Geneva. Independent Maine Sen Angus King said Rubio told them the plan "was not the administration’s plan" but a "wish list of the Russians."
A State Department spokesperson denied their account, calling it "blatantly false".
Rubio himself then took the extraordinary step of suggesting online that the senators were mistaken, even though they said he was their source for the information. The secretary of state doubled down on the assertion that Washington was responsible for a proposal that had surprised many from the beginning for being so favourable to Moscow.
On Sunday, the top Democrat on the US Senate Intelligence Committee said the peace plan appeared to be "almost a series of Russian talking points," had made Europeans "feel like they’ve been totally left high and dry" and had led to "ferocious pushback."
US Sen Mark Warner told ABC’s "This Week" that he thought Trump was "seeing this one-sided plan kind of blow up in his face."
"My hope is he’ll come back and be a bit more reasonable," Warner said.
Possibility for additional talks
Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that he would hold a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday. He said he would talk to the Russian leader about reviving a previous deal from July 2022 that allowed Ukraine to safely ship exports of grain via the Black Sea.
The agreement stayed in place until the following year, when Putin refused to extend it, saying that a parallel agreement promising to remove obstacles to Russian exports of food and fertiliser hadn’t been honoured.
"We had a grain corridor endeavour to open the path to peace," Erdogan said, "Unfortunately we were only partially able to succeed. Tomorrow I will be asking Putin to revisit the endeavour."
Erdogan's new diplomatic push comes just days after he met with Zelensky in Ankara.
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