Ukraine has significantly revised a US "peace plan" to end the conflict, removing some of Russia's maximalist demands, people familiar with the talks said, while European leaders warned today that an agreement could not be reached quickly, the British newspaper The Guardian reports.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky could meet with US President Donald Trump at the White House later this week, sources said, amid a flurry of calls between Kiev and Washington. Ukraine has insisted that Europe be included in the talks.
The original 28-point US-Russian plan, drawn up last month by Kirill Dmitriev, a special envoy to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Trump's representative Steve Witkoff, calls on Ukraine to withdraw from cities it controls in the eastern Donbas region, limit the size of its army and not join NATO.
During talks in Switzerland on Sunday – led by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Zelensky’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak – the plan was significantly revised. It now contains just 19 points. Kiev and its European partners say the existing front line must be the starting point for talks on territory, according to the Guardian.
They say there can be no recognition of territories Russia has seized by military force and that Kiev should make its own decisions about whether to join the European Union (EU) and NATO – something the Kremlin wants to veto or impose conditions on.
Ukraine's First Deputy Foreign Minister, Serhiy Kyslytsia, told the Financial Times that such issues were "put in parentheses" to be decided later by Trump and Zelensky.
Rubio described Sunday's talks as "very, very positive."
Writing today on the Trut Social network, Trump, who just days earlier accused the Ukrainian leadership of showing "zero gratitude," also struck a more conciliatory tone.
"Is it really possible that major progress is being made in the peace talks between Russia and Ukraine??? Don't believe it until you see it, but maybe something good is happening after all. GOD BLESS AMERICA!" he wrote.
The Ukrainian delegation, upon returning to Kiev from Geneva today, briefed Zelensky on the progress of the negotiations. They described the latest version of the plan as more realistic. Separately, Zelensky also spoke with US Vice President J.D. Vance and urged him to include European countries in the process. Vance reportedly agreed, writes The Guardian.
But in the most obvious sign yet that the original 28-point plan - widely seen as favorable to Moscow - still falls short of several key Kremlin demands, Putin's top foreign policy adviser said today that Moscow would seek to "rework" certain parts of the document.
"We have been given something like a draft... which will require further refinement," Yuri Ushakov said, adding that "many provisions" of the plan seem acceptable to Russia, but that others "will require the most detailed discussions and consideration between the parties."
Underlining the Kremlin's hard line, Ushakov said Moscow would reject the European counterproposal from the weekend, which, according to a draft seen by Reuters, changes the meaning and significance of key points regarding NATO membership and territory.
"The European plan, at first glance... is completely unconstructive and does not suit us," he said.
The UK and the EU were caught off guard last week when the original plan was leaked to the US media. The Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll – a friend and college classmate of Vance – was sent to Kiev with a military delegation to brief Zelensky on the document’s contents.
Since then, European governments have been trying to amend the document, which appears to have been originally written in Russian. EU leaders, attending an EU-Africa summit in Angola, welcomed some progress but stressed that much more work was needed and insisted that Europe must be fully engaged, and Russia present, if the negotiations are to make any substantial progress.
The President of the European Council, Antonio Costa, praised the "new momentum", saying after talks on the sidelines of the summit that, although problems remain, "the direction is positive".
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also called the "refined peace framework" agreed in Switzerland "a solid basis for further progress," but added: "There is still work to be done."
Von der Leyen said that the basic principles on which the EU will always insist are that "the territory and sovereignty of Ukraine must be respected - only Ukraine, as a sovereign state, can make decisions regarding its armed forces."
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that both Europe and Russia must be fully involved.
"The next step must be: Russia must sit at the table," Merz said, while Europeans must be able to give their consent on "issues that affect European interests and sovereignty."
The negotiations will be a "lengthy process" and Merc said he does not expect a breakthrough this week.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the talks were sensitive because "no one wants to dissuade the Americans and President Trump from having the United States on our side in this process."
Tusk also stressed that any peace agreement must "strengthen, not weaken, our security" and must not "benefit the aggressor."
The Swedish Prime Minister, Ulf Kristerson, said that Russia "must be forced to sit at the negotiating table" to show that "aggression... never goes unpunished."
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said there was still work to be done, but progress was being seen.
A group of countries supporting Ukraine - a coalition of the willing - will discuss the issue in a video call on Tuesday, he said.
The chairmen of the foreign affairs committees of the parliaments of 20 European countries, including France, Ireland, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom, issued a rare joint statement saying that a just and lasting peace cannot be achieved by "appeasement to the aggressor" but must be "based on international law and fully respect the territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty of Ukraine."
Zelensky is in his most vulnerable position since the start of the war, after a corruption scandal led to the dismissal of two of his ministers, while Russia is making progress on the battlefield.
Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, was hit by what officials described as a massive drone strike that killed four people on Sunday. As smoke rose from the rubble, a man was seen crouching and holding the hand of a deceased person.
"There was a family, there were children," Ihor Klimenko, commander of the Red Cross team in Kharkiv, told Reuters. "I can't tell you how, but the children are alive, thank God, the man is alive. The woman, unfortunately, died."
Across the border, Russian air defenses shot down Ukrainian drones en route to Moscow, forcing three airports serving the capital to temporarily suspend flights. A Ukrainian drone strike on Sunday reportedly knocked out power to thousands of residents near Moscow — a rare reversal from Russian attacks on energy facilities that regularly cause power outages for millions of Ukrainians.
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