‘Non-starter’ peace plan

Ukraine’s allies rush to counter Trump’s ‘non-starter’ peace plan

Top British and European officials will join high-level talks between the U.S. and Ukraine starting Sunday, after Kyiv’s allies voiced concern at Trump’s proposed deal. 

By Tim Ross

Ukraine’s staunchest allies are scrambling to rewrite Donald Trump’s peace plan to stop him forcing Kyiv to hand swathes of territory to Russia in an unbalanced deal. 

Western governments were privately shocked and dismayed at the new 28-point outline for an agreement from the U.S. president’s team this week, seeing it as an attempt to push Ukraine to give Vladimir Putin everything he wants. 

The EU, France, Germany and the U.K. will take part in high-level negotiations on Trump’s blueprint on Sunday in Switzerland, a senior European official told POLITICO. The fact that British and EU officials will get seats at the negotiating table represents a significant win for the Europeans, who had been shut out of the most recent U.S. peace drive until now.

Trump’s team is expected to meet with the Russian side in the coming days in an effort to get the two sides to agree to a deal by his deadline of Thanksgiving on Thursday.

European leaders are now frantically working up counter-proposals to put to Trump to mitigate the worst elements of the U.S. plan, which include forcing Ukraine to cede land in the east and cut the size of its military, according to multiple officials familiar with the matter, granted anonymity to speak candidly. 

More than a dozen leaders — including Germany’s Friedrich Merz, France’s Emmanuel Macron, the U.K.’s Keir Starmer, the EU’s Ursula von der Leyen, Finland’s Alexander Stubb and Canada’s Mark Carney — met for an urgent discussion at the G20 summit in Johannesburg to coordinate their response with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“The draft is a basis which will require additional work,” the leaders said in a joint statement after discussing Trump’s plan. “We are clear on the principle that borders must not be changed by force. We are also concerned by the proposed limitations on Ukraine’s armed forces, which would leave Ukraine vulnerable to future attack.”

The leaders reiterated the “strength” of their continued support for Ukraine and insisted that any provisions in a peace deal that affected the EU or NATO would require proper “consent” from the members of these multinational blocs.

Trump late Saturday appeared to back away from demanding that Kyiv accept the U.S. proposal as put forward, saying the blueprint is “not my final offer” in comments to reporters outside the White House. “I’d like to get to peace … one way or another we have to get it ended,” Trump said.

Rustem Umerov, secretary of the Ukrainian national defense and security council, confirmed earlier on Saturday that Ukraine planned to hold high-level talks with U.S. officials in Switzerland. The talks are to start on Sunday and will involve national security advisers from Ukraine, the U.S., France, Britain and Germany, Zelenskyy said in a statement late Saturday.

Representing the EU, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s head of cabinet, Bjoern Seibert, is also expected to attend.

“The vast majority of European leaders are ready to assist and get involved,” Zelenskyy said.

U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump negotiator Steve Witkoff will travel to the meeting in Geneva, according to a U.S. official and two European officials.

Rubio was forced to distance himself from reports he described the plan as a wish-list made in Moscow that did not reflect Washington’s position. He issued a statement early Sunday that said “the peace proposal was authored by the U.S.”

The U.S. plan “is offered as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations,” Rubio said. “It is based on input from the Russian side. But it is also based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”

The main aim of Ukraine’s supporters is to strengthen Zelenskyy’s position and ensure he has their public backing for whatever comes next. While none of Ukraine’s allies has been involved in drafting Trump’s plan or has said they think it is fair, they took care not to reject the 28-point blueprint outright, for fear of antagonizing the unpredictable American president. 

Crisis talks

Instead, Kyiv’s allies are working intensively behind the scenes to devise alternatives to Trump’s proposals that would better protect Ukrainian and European interests, the officials said. However, it is clear that none of Ukraine’s friends and allies believe the raw Trump plan is acceptable and some do not want to give it any credibility at all. 

One EU diplomat said engaging with the U.S. proposal would “lend legitimacy to something that has been drawn up without Ukrainian or European involvement, while its impact would directly affect us. As such it’s a non-starter.” 

The crisis talks in Johannesburg came as the Trump administration piled pressure on Zelenskyy to agree to the terms of the plan by a deadline of Thanksgiving, next Thursday. If Zelenskyy refuses, Trump could cut off access to U.S. intelligence on Russian activities, as well as halt American military support, both of which have been critical in keeping Ukraine in the fight for the past three-and-a-half years. 

Then Ukraine would be left almost entirely reliant on aid from Europe, and EU leaders are already struggling to work out how to help. 

“We have been working for a just and sustainable peace with Ukraine and for Ukraine together with our friends and partners,” von der Leyen said after a meeting with Zelenskyy on Friday. “We have discussed the current situation and we are clear that there should be nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.” 

Von der Leyen also spoke with Macron, Starmer and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

The draft U.S. plan would require Ukraine to hand over the Russian-occupied Donbas region in the east of the country to Putin, limit Ukrainian armed forces to 600,000 personnel and bar the country from joining NATO permanently.

Trump is intensifying his push for a peace accord at a particularly sensitive time for Zelenskyy — who is battling to contain a swirling corruption scandal — and that is part of the point. U.S. officials think Zelenskyy’s weakness at home will make it more likely that he will agree to their terms. 

Zelenskyy himself said on Friday that his country is facing one of the most difficult moments in its history and may be forced to choose between losing its “dignity” and losing “a key partner.” 

Thursday deadline

Putin meanwhile has backed Trump’s proposal, which includes unfreezing Russian assets currently held in Europe and preparing the way for potentially lucrative reconstruction work from which America would profit. The U.S. framework also suggests future Russian-American projects would flow from the peace. 

In another irritation to Brussels, Hungary’s Putin-friendly leader, Viktor Orbán, also backed the U.S. plan.

It’s not clear what happens if Ukraine does not sign up to the deal by Trump’s Thursday deadline. European officials note that Trump has frequently imposed deadlines — on Putin as well as on trade partners — only for these to pass without consequences. One suggestion is that America could cut off its intelligence sharing support for Ukraine’s military, which Trump has done before, before restoring it again. 

Europeans are dismayed that they — and Ukraine — have so far been completely cut out of Trump’s work on the draft peace accord, which Witkoff drew up. EU officials insist that since Europe is now a much bigger donor than the U.S. to Ukraine’s military effort it must not be ignored in any negotiations. 

More importantly for von der Leyen, Starmer and the rest of the leaders, there cannot be a deal done over Zelenskyy’s head. European officials and former officials have described the 28-point plan as “scandalous” and said Witkoff needs “a psychiatrist” if he thinks it will fly.