Bail on crucial Ukraine talks

Rubio and Witkoff bail on crucial Ukraine talks amid Crimea split

Donald Trump’s peace proposal involves a potential lifting of sanctions and informal U.S. recognition of Russia’s control over Crimea. That’s a nonstarter for Kyiv.

By Stefan Boscia, Robbie Gramer and Veronika Melkozerova

A London-hosted Ukraine summit was thrown into disarray Wednesday after top U.S. representatives pulled out at the eleventh hour and Ukraine pushed back at proposals from Donald Trump's administration to recognize Russia's illegal 2014 annexation of Crimea.

The U.K. is instead hosting dramatically scaled-back talks after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff, a key American player in negotiations with Moscow, withdrew from the gathering, citing a scheduling conflict.

The pair canceled in a last-minute about-face that underscores tensions between the Trump team and its European allies over the fate of the Ukraine-Russia war.

The Ukrainians were heading to London ready to talk about a 30-day interim ceasefire proposal that France and the U.K. appeared willing to support.

But the Trump administration instead wants to focus on the president's peace deal plan, presented to Ukraine as a take-it-or-leave-it option, two people familiar with the administration's internal plans and proposal said.

Trump's peace proposal involves a potential lifting of sanctions and U.S. informal recognition of Russia's control over Crimea. The latter is a nonstarter for Kyiv — and unlikely to fly with its Western allies.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday that Ukraine had yet to receive any official proposals from the U.S., and would never recognize Crimea or any other territories as Russian, because such a move would go against the Ukrainian constitution.

“There is nothing to talk about,” he said. “This violates our constitution. This is our territory, the territory of the people of Ukraine.” Zelenskyy warned that “discussing everything at once will only prolong" the conflict.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance told reporters in India on Wednesday that the U.S. had issued a “very explicit proposal” to Russia and Ukraine to end the conflict by freezing it on its existing lines — and threatened to "walk away" if progress is not forthcoming.

“The current lines, somewhere close to them is where you’re ultimately, I think, going to draw the new lines in the conflict," he said.

Trump's Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, is now headlining the London talks from the U.S. side instead, but it is Witkoff who has been a crucial go-between in talks with Russia over the conflict.

'We will work for peace'

The ditching of talks leaves the high-level European delegations traveling to London — from France, Germany, the U.K. and Ukraine — in a bind.

The U.K. Foreign Office decided that the meeting of "the Quad" — the U.K., U.S., France and Germany — with Ukraine would now be conducted by officials instead of Foreign Secretary David Lammy hosting. Lammy will drop in on talks and still hold a bilateral meeting with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha.

Sybiha arrived in London Wednesday morning alongside Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov and Zelenskyy's top aide Andriy Yermak.

Yermak said in a statement: "Despite everything, we will work for peace."

He added: "Today we will talk about ways to achieve a full and unconditional ceasefire as the first step towards a full-fledged settlement process and achieving a just and sustainable peace."

Respecting Ukraine's "territorial integrity" remains a key European demand in talks, according to an Elysée official.

"The goal remains to build a common approach that the United States can present to Russia," the same official said.

In Berlin, Jürgen Hardt, the foreign policy spokesperson for the Christian Democratic Union, Germany's major center-right party, said his expectations for the talks in London were “rather low,” but downplayed the significance of them being conducted at official level.

“Russia is showing no willingness for peace, so lifting sanctions is currently out of the question,” he said. “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin needs to be brought to a point where he at least has to consider that his war of aggression against Ukraine might ultimately fail. Hopefully, that will lead him to seek peace in time of his own accord." Putin, he said, "only understands the language of strength."

In London, No.10 Downing Street insisted Wednesday lunchtime that the U.S. and U.K. remained on the same page.

Asked if they were disappointed by Rubio and Witkoff's non-attendance, Prime Minister Keir Starmer's spokesperson pointed to Kellogg's presence and said U.K. ministers "fully support U.S. efforts to secure a sustainable end to the war."

Rubio tweeted Tuesday night that he had a "productive conversation" with Lammy and pledged to reschedule his trip to the U.K. in the "coming months."