Western leaders have said the US peace plan for ending the war in Ukraine “will require additional work” at the G20 summit in Johannesburg, which Trump boycotted.
The draft plan, which was leaked earlier this week, endorsed some of Russia’s demands, such as handing over areas of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, limiting its military, and relinquishing its ambitions to join Nato. Washington has given Kyiv a deadline of Thursday to respond.
European leaders met on the sidelines of the summit to discuss their response to the plan.
In a joint statement they said the draft “includes important elements that will be essential for a just and lasting peace,” but it is “a basis which will require additional work”.
They were clear that “borders must not be changed by force.”
They added that any elements relating to the EU and Nato would need their agreement, and that they “are ready to engage in order to ensure that a future peace is sustainable”.
The statement was signed by the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, Finland, Norway, and of the EU, as well as the prime ministers of Canada and Japan.
Ukraine and the US will meet in Switzerland in the coming days to discuss Washington’s plan, a Ukrainian official wrote on social media.
Speaking to reporters at the summit in Johannesburg, British prime minister Keir Starmer said the leaders were concerned about the US proposals to cap Ukraine’s military “because it’s fundamental that Ukraine has to be able to defend itself if there’s a ceasefire”.
He described the Ukraine meeting on the sidelines of the summit as being between “mainly allies from the coalition of the willing,” and repeated that “the consensus was that there are elements in the 28-point plan which are essential to lasting peace, but it requires additional work, and we are going to engage on that.”
Starmer added that he expected to talk to the US president “in the coming days”, though the main focus would be on Sunday’s talks in Geneva, where he said “senior US personnel, European NSAs (security advisers), including the UK NSA, and obviously Ukrainians [will be] there to work further on the draft.”
More broadly, French president Emmanuel Macron called into question the efficacy of the G20, saying that the group of the world’s biggest economies is “at risk” because of its inability to find common ground and resolve major crises.
“The G20 may be coming to the end of a cycle,” warned the French leader. “We are living in a moment of geopolitics in which we are struggling to resolve major crises together around this table, including with members who are not present today.”
Washington boycotted the gathering of world leaders in South Africa due to a range of issues, including the widely discredited claim that the host country’s white minority are the victims of large-scale killings. The South African government has strenuously denied these allegations.
Macron said the group of 19 countries was struggling to find consensus on issues such as humanitarian law and sovereignty.
He pointed specifically to the US unilateral peace plan, and reiterated that “there can be no peace in Ukraine without Ukrainians, without respect for their sovereignty”.
Macron said world leaders needed to recognise that “the G20 is at risk if we do not collectively re-engage around a few priorities”. He added: “We must absolutely demonstrate that we have concrete actions to re-engage this forum and provide responses for our economies collectively around this table.”
Starmer agreed, saying the “road ahead is tough,” but that “we need to find ways to play a constructive role again today in the face of the world challenges”.
Although peace in Ukraine was the main focus, the G20 leaders also called for peace in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the occupied Palestinian territory.
There were concerns ahead of the summit that Trump’s absence, along with several other leaders including from Russia and China, would risk undermining the credibility of the G20 meeting, the first to take place on the African continent.
But the summit’s host, president Cyril Ramaphosa, argued the group remained crucial for international cooperation. “The G20 underscores the value of the relevance of multilateralism. It recognises that the challenges that we face can only be resolved through cooperation, collaboration and partnership,” he said.
The US will assume the G20 presidency in 2026, followed by the UK, which will host the global gathering in 2027.
