What happened
The U.S. and Ukraine said Sunday that a round of “highly productive” negotiations in Geneva had resulted in an “updated and refined peace framework,” following days of confusion and pushback against a Russia-friendly 28-point plan the Trump administration presented to Kyiv last week. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who led the U.S. delegation, said the two sides made “substantial progress” and he felt “very optimistic that we can get something done.”
Who said what
The U.S. and Kyiv agreed in a joint statement that a final peace deal “must fully uphold Ukraine’s sovereignty and deliver a sustainable and just peace.” But neither side explained how the revised plan differed from the original, which required Ukraine to cede unconquered land, cap its army and arsenal, and other measures long rejected by Kyiv as tantamount to capitulation.
President Donald Trump told reporters on Saturday that the initial 28-point proposal was “not my final offer,” but if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not accept it by a Thursday deadline, “then he can continue to fight his little heart out.” Trump said on social media Sunday morning that “UKRAINE ‘LEADERSHIP’ HAS EXPRESSED ZERO GRATITUDE FOR OUR EFFORTS.” Rubio also downplayed Trump’s Thanksgiving deadline.
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Adding to the uncertainty, “there seemed to be continued confusion about the original proposal,” The New York Times said. A bipartisan group of senators said Rubio had told them Saturday that it was a Kremlin “wish list” that the U.S. was just passing along. But the State Department said that was “blatantly false,” and Rubio wrote on social media that it was “authored by the U.S.” It was “absolute chaos,” a U.S. official told The Washington Post, “because even different parts of the White House don’t know what’s going on. It’s embarrassing.”
What next?
The U.S.-Ukrainian statement said the two sides would “continue intensive work on joint proposals in the coming days.” When that work is done, “obviously the Russians get a vote here,” Rubio said, before flying back to Washington, D.C., on Sunday. Kremlin officials “have been rejecting” the original 28-point plan, the Institute for the Study of War said, suggesting “Russia is unlikely to accept any proposed peace plan that falls short of Ukrainian capitulation.”
