Ukraine has significantly amended the US “peace plan” for Ukraine, removing some of Russia’s maximalist demands, people familiar with the negotiations said, as European leaders warned on Monday that no deal could be reached quickly.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy may meet Donald Trump in the White House later this week, they indicated, amid a flurry of calls between Kyiv and Washington. Ukraine is also pressing for Europe to be involved in the talks.
The original 28-point US-Russian plan was drawn up last month by Kirill Dmitriev, Vladimir Putin’s special envoy, and Trump’s representative Steve Witkoff. It 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 negotiations on Sunday in Switzerland – led by the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak – the plan was substantially revised. It now includes only 19 points. Kyiv and its European partners say the existing frontline has to be the starting point for territorial discussions.
They say there can be no recognition of land seized by Russia militarily, and add that Kyiv should make its own decisions on whether to join the EU and Nato – something the Kremlin wants to veto or impose conditions on.
Afterwards, Rubio hailed Sunday’s talks as “very very positive”. Writing on Truth Social, Trump, who days earlier had accused Ukraine’s leadership of having “zero gratitude”, struck a positive tone.
He wrote: “Is it really possible that big progress is being made in Peace Talks between Russia and Ukraine??? Don’t believe it until you see it, but something good just may be happening. GOD BLESS AMERICA!”
Ukraine’s delegation briefed Zelenskyy about the talks on Monday, after returning from Geneva to Kyiv. They described the latest version of the plan as more realistic. Separately, Zelenskyy spoke to the US vice-president, JD Vance, and urged him to involve European countries in the process. Vance reportedly agreed.
The UK and EU were blindsided last week when the original plan was leaked to US media. The army secretary, Dan Driscoll – Vance’s friend and university classmate – was sent to Kyiv with a military delegation to brief Zelenskyy on its contents.
Since then, European governments have sought to revise the document, which appears to have originally been written in Russian. They published their own counter-proposals over the weekend, which called for Ukraine’s sovereignty to be respected.
The talks come as Zelenskyy is at his most vulnerable since the start of the war, after a corruption scandal led to two of his ministers being dismissed and as Russia makes battlefield gains.
Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, was hit by what officials said was a massive drone attack that killed four people on Sunday. With smoke rising from the rubble, one man was seen crouched and holding the hand of a dead body.
“There was a family, there were children,” Ihor Klymenko, Red Cross commander of the emergency response team in Kharkiv, told Reuters. “I can’t tell you how, but the children are alive, thank God, the man is alive. The woman died, unfortunately.“
Across the border, Russian air defences downed Ukrainian drones en route to Moscow, forcing three airports serving the capital to pause flights. A reported Ukrainian drone strike on Sunday knocked power out for thousands of residents near Moscow, a rare reversal of Russian attacks on energy targets that regularly cause power blackouts for millions of Ukrainians.
