President Donald Trump said Saturday that his administration peace proposal For Ukraine and Russia, this is “not my final proposal,” he told reporters after being asked by NBC News: “One way or another, we have to end this.”
Trump added that if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky does not agree to the peace plan, “then he can continue to fight as hard as he can.”
Trump said earlier this week that he wants Zelensky, who has been wavering on the proposal, to accept the peace plan. for Thanksgiving.
Key parts of the proposal include allowing Russia to retain more Ukrainian territory than it currently has, forcing Ukraine to limit the size of its army and agreeing that Ukraine will never join NATO.
Ukrainian lawmakers have criticized the plan as too concessionary to Russian demands, although the Trump administration has said the 28-point plan was developed with input from both sides in the conflict.
“Ukraine may now face a very difficult choice: either the loss of its dignity, or the risk of losing a key partner, or a difficult 28 points, or a very difficult winter,” Zelensky said in a video about the plan earlier this week.
Several US lawmakers, including from Trump's own party, have also expressed concerns about the plan.
“While there are many good ideas in the proposed Russian-Ukrainian peace plan, there are several areas that are very problematic and could be improved. The goal of any peace agreement is to end the war fairly and fairly, not to create new conflict,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., wrote in the post on Saturday morning. The South Carolina senator later said he was confident Trump would push for a peace deal by pushing both countries and ensure Ukraine would be free and able to defend itself from future aggression.
Senator Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi, wrote: in his own X post on Friday said that “this so-called 'peace plan' has real problems and I am very skeptical about achieving peace.”
He added: “Ukraine should not be forced to surrender its lands to one of the world's most egregious war criminals, Vladimir Putin. The size and deployment of Ukraine's armed forces are the sovereign choice of its government and people. And any guarantees provided to Putin should not reward his malign behavior or undermine the security of the United States or allies.”
The proposal includes a security guarantee with a commitment that the U.S. and Ukraine's European allies would view any future attack on Ukraine as an attack on the broader transatlantic community, a U.S. official told NBC News, without giving further details about what that commitment would entail.
Ukrainian leaders are not the only ones expressing concern about the plan. On the sidelines of the G20 summit in South Africa, European leaders said the proposal, if accepted, could “make Ukraine vulnerable to future attacks“
This was a key point in the statement signed by the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain and Norway.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff will travel to Geneva on Sunday to meet with the Ukrainian delegation to move forward with peace talks to end the war in Ukraine, two U.S. officials said.
The possibility of holding a separate meeting with the Russian delegation at a different location in the coming days is being considered, these officials said.
Rubio and Witkoff will join Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who arrived earlier Saturday along with the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, Ambassador Julie Davis. Driscoll traveled to Kyiv last week to meet with Zelensky.
“Secretary Driscoll and his team have just landed in Geneva to work on the next steps to achieve peace in Ukraine,” the US official said.
Zelensky confirmed the details of the meeting in post on Xsaying he spoke to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Saturday.
“Tomorrow our advisers will work in Switzerland – representatives of Ukraine, the United States and the E3 format, namely Great Britain, France and Germany. The vast majority of European leaders are ready to help and get involved. Consultations continue at different levels, and the efforts of everyone who strives for a genuine and lasting peace matter,” Zelensky wrote.
Trump has made a quick end to the ongoing war in Ukraine a key promise of his 2024 re-election campaign. He has met Zelensky several times this year and hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin at a summit in Alaska.
Russian leaders, including Putin, praised the peace proposal, with Putin saying that if Ukraine did not sign the agreement, Russia would end the war “by military means, through armed struggle.”
