Donald Trump said on Saturday that his Moscow-drafted “peace plan” was “not my final offer”, after a furious backlash from Ukrainians who described it as reminiscent of Neville Chamberlain’s 1938 Munich agreement with Adolf Hitler.
The US president told reporters during brief remarks at the White House: “We’d like to get to peace. It should’ve happened a long time ago ... we’re trying to get it ended, one way or the other we have to get it ended.”
Ukrainian and American officials will meet in Switzerland on Sunday for talks to discuss the plan. Security officials from France, Britain and Germany are expected to join them in Geneva.
In the build-up to the talks, the US state department disputed claims by US senators from across the political spectrum that secretary of state Marco Rubio had told them the proposal “was not the administration’s plan” but a “wish list of the Russians”. The claim, made by figures including the independent senator Angus King, a member of the Senate foreign relations committee, was “blatantly false”, said US state department deputy spokesman Tommy Piggott. Rubio later said in a post that the proposal was authored by the US “as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations” and was based on input from both sides.
RM Block
Mr Trump has given Volodymyr Zelenskiy until Thursday to sign the 28-point document. It calls on Kyiv to give up territory it controls to Russia, reduce the size of its army and relinquish long-range weapons. It also rules out a European peacekeeping force and sanctions for Russian war crimes.
In a sombre address on Friday, Mr Zelenskiy warned his country faces an impossible choice over the coming days between keeping its national dignity and losing a big partner in the shape of the US. It faces one of the most difficult moments in its history, he said.
Speaking on Saturday, Mr Zelenskiy said real or “dignified” peace was always based on “guaranteed security and justice”. He announced a negotiating team, appointed by presidential decree, that would soon meet its US counterparts in Geneva, led by his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak.
Another member of the Ukrainian delegation, former defence minister and national security council secretary Rustem Umerov, said there would be consultations with Washington “on the possible parameters of a future peace agreement”.
Hinting at red lines, Mr Umerov said: “Ukraine approaches this process with a clear understanding of its interests. This is another stage of the dialogue that has been ongoing in recent days and is primarily aimed at aligning our vision for the next steps.”
Mr Zelenskiy has sought to engage constructively with a White House seemingly determined to end the conflict on the Kremlin’s one-sided terms. He has made clear he cannot give up Ukraine’s sovereignty or abandon a constitution that enshrines the country’s current borders.
At a meeting in South Africa, G20 leaders and the European Council issued a joint statement pushing back on Trump’s plan, saying it needs “additional work”. It said EU and Nato members would need to be consulted on some of its provisions, which rule out Kyiv’s Nato membership and put conditions on its future EU accession. In his address to the G20 summit, Taoiseach Micheál Martin called for renewed efforts to end the “illegal invasion” of Ukraine by Russia.
Ukrainian reaction to the text, drawn up by Mr Putin’s envoy Kirill Dmitriev and Mr Trump’s representative, Steve Witkoff, has been overwhelmingly hostile. Commentators said it was a blueprint for another Russian invasion: not only of Ukraine but of other parts of Europe as well.
Mustafa Nayyem, a journalist and politician who led Ukraine’s 2014 pro-democracy Maidan revolution, said it invited parallels with Chamberlain’s infamous Munich deal with Hitler. Mr Trump’s peace plan came from the same “recognisable genre”, with the victim invited “to formulate his own defeat so everyone else can live easier”.
In a Facebook post Mr Nayyem said he was outraged by its “full” amnesty for Russian war crimes. It was an insult to people who had hidden in basements in Bucha or Mariupol – where Russian troops executed hundreds of civilians – and for those whose children had been forcibly deported to Russia, he said. “A rather cynical agreement,” he said.
Speaking in Kyiv’s Golden Gate metro station, Dmytro Sariskyi (21) said Russia had been trying to control Ukraine politically and territorially “for years”. It conceded “barely anything” in the Trump agreement and continued to keep its forces on Ukrainian soil. “I think the deal is an attempt to break Ukraine and force unjust conditions on us,” he said.
If Mr Zelenskiyy signed off on the proposals Kyiv would be forced to give up its freedoms, he said. If it didn’t the US would most likely break off co-operation and intelligence sharing, a crucial source of battlefield information for frontline Ukrainian troops. “There is no good way out of this for now,” he said.
Another passenger, 19-year-old Sofia Barchan, said Ukraine would “keep strong” without American support. “We will fight for as long as it takes. Our territory will remain our territory, including Crimea and the east. It belongs to Ukraine.” She said Mr Zelenskiy was a “smart person” and predicted he would not give up Ukrainian land.
Speaking in the rain, next to a replica of Kyiv’s original medieval gate, Olena Ivanovna said she was grateful to Mr Trump for his peacemaking efforts. She said Ukraine should be ready to give away Crimea and the eastern Donbas region temporarily if it meant keeping the United States as a partner. “President Zelenskiy should hold a referendum and ask the people,” she said.
Previous European leaders have roundly condemned the plan. Finland’s former prime minister Sanna Marin called it a catastrophe, not only for Ukraine and Ukrainians but for “all of the democratic world”. She said if the West showed weakness and ignorance – as it did in 2014 when Putin annexed Crimea – “more aggression and conflicts” would follow.
The former prime minister of Belgium, Guy Verhofstadt, quoted Churchill’s definition of an appeaser as “one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last”. He said: “Trump now takes Putin’s side. Europe must choose again: appeasement or our values, imperialism or freedom. Another moment of truth for our [European] union.” – Guardian
