European countries proposed a radical alternative Ukraine peace plan on Sunday that omits some of the pro-Russia points made in the original US-backed document and calls for Kyiv’s sovereignty to be respected.
The counterproposal emerged as US, Ukrainian and international negotiators met in Switzerland. The 28-point US document leaked last week demands Ukraine hand over territory to Russia, limits the size of its army and agrees not to pursue the Kremlin for alleged war crimes.
As discussions began in Geneva, Donald Trump said Ukraine had shown “zero gratitude” for US efforts to end the conflict. In a conciliatory response, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he was personally grateful to the US president for the military assistance Washington had given, beginning with Javelin missiles, which had saved Ukrainian lives.
Mr Trump’s hostile rhetoric came after a confusing weekend in which the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, admitted the White House plan was conceived in Moscow, only to then insist the US was its author.
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Having been blindsided by Washington’s initiative, Ukraine’s European allies published their Kyiv-friendly plan on Sunday. It says negotiations over territory should take place after a ceasefire is agreed and should start from the line of contact – the existing frontline.
It says both parties would agree how any truce would be monitored “under US supervision”. Unlike the White House text, the European alternative does not call for Kyiv to withdraw from cities it controls in eastern Donbas. Nor does it rule out Ukraine’s membership of Nato, but points out there is no consensus over its membership.
There are further eye-catching proposals. They include that Russia give the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which would split power 50-50 between Moscow and Kyiv. Ukraine’s army would be capped during peacetime at 800,000 soldiers, 200,000 more than in the US draft.
Frozen Russian assets would also be used to reconstruct Ukraine, rather than being partly given to US investors. If Moscow were to respect a “sustainable peace”, sanctions imposed since 2014 would be gradually eased and Russia would be brought back into the G8.
European leaders at the G20 summit in South Africa signalled on Saturday that the White House’s peace formula needed “additional work”. Poland’s president, Donald Tusk, expressed reservations on Sunday, saying: “It would be good to know for sure who is the author of the plan and where was it created.”
The document was drawn up by Kirill Dmitriev, Vladimir Putin’s envoy, together with Mr Trump’s special representative, Steve Witkoff. Speculation based on the use of language in the plan suggests it may have been written in Russian and later translated into English.
A group of US senators said Mr Rubio told them the text was not an American one. It was, they said, a Russian document deliberately leaked by Moscow which the US then passed on to Ukraine. Mr Rubio later insisted the US did author the proposal, with input from Russia and Ukraine.
Amid a backlash from some Republican senators, Trump rowed back from his earlier demand that Zelenskiy sign off on the deal by Thursday. Speaking in Washington, the US president said it was “not my final offer”, opening the door to significant changes.
Mr Rubio and Mr Witkoff arrived in Geneva together on Sunday with the US army secretary, Dan Driscoll, who held talks with Mr Zelenskiy in Kyiv last week. They met a Ukrainian delegation led by Mr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak.
Mr Rubio described the talks afterwards in positive terms as “very very meaningful”. The Kyiv team had earlier spoken to officials from France, Germany and the UK, including British prime minister Keir Starmer’s national security adviser, Jonathan Powell.
European officials have been scathing about the US draft in private conversations. They say it undermines Ukraine’s sovereignty and sets conditions for its EU accession. It would set a dangerous global precedent if accepted, they argue. It also rules out a French and British-led peacekeeping force for Ukraine and limits where Nato aircraft could be based.
One official said Mr Putin was trying to turn back the clock 30 years on Europe’s security architecture and enforce demands made shortly before his all-out invasion. Russia’s president called for Nato’s military forces to withdraw to their 1997 borders, before the Baltic states and central Europe joined the transatlantic alliance.
The European counterproposal will be welcomed by Mr Zelenskiy, who has come under enormous pressure to bend to US demands. He said last week that his country faced an impossible choice between betraying national interests and losing a major ally in the shape of Washington. “The bloodshed must be stopped, and we must ensure that the war is never reignited,” he wrote on Sunday.
Olexiy Haran, a professor of comparative politics at the Kyiv Mohyla academy, said Ukrainians overwhelmingly rejected the Trump document and would support the European one. “Freezing the frontline is a difficult compromise for us, but one a majority would back,” he said, but added that there was no support for giving land to Russia.
“Any peace deal isn’t about Zelenskiy. Ultimately it’s about the Ukrainian people and their understanding of Ukraine as a nation,” he said. “We definitely can’t allow all these crazy points in this Trump so-called peace plan.” – Guardian
