US president Donald Trump on Sunday claimed Ukraine had shown no gratitude for US efforts to end the war, as American, Ukrainian and international negotiators met in Switzerland to discuss the “peace plan” that would involve significant concessions to Moscow from Kyiv.
Writing on Truth Social, Mr Trump avoided blaming Russia for the war. Instead, he said his predecessor, Joe Biden, was responsible and had given “everything” to Kyiv for “free free free”. Mr Trump added: “UKRAINE ‘LEADERSHIP’ HAS EXPRESSED ZERO GRATITUDE FOR OUR EFFORTS, AND EUROPE CONTINUES TO BUY OIL FROM RUSSIA.”
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy responded that Ukraine was grateful to the United States and to Mr Trump for all US efforts aimed at helping Kyiv.
“Ukraine is thankful to the United States, to every American heart and particularly to President Trump for the help which, starting with Javelin (missiles), saves Ukrainian lives,” Mr Zelenskiy wrote on Telegram.
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Mr Zelenskiy also expressed thanks to Europe and the G7 and G20 groupings of countries for their help, saying efforts to maintain this support were important.
“This is why we are working so carefully on every point, every step towards peace,” he wrote. “Everything has to be worked out correctly so that we can truly end this war and prevent war from happening again.”
US secretary of state Marco Rubio and US special envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Geneva for talks on Sunday to discuss Washington’s draft plan to end the war in Ukraine, a US official has said.
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. Mr 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.
Amid contradictory statements, and a backlash from some Republican senators, Mr Trump rowed back from his earlier demand that Mr Zelenskiy sign off on the deal by this Thursday. Speaking in Washington, the US president said it was “not my final offer”, opening the door to significant changes.
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.”
A 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.
European leaders have made clear that the Moscow-drafted demands endorsed by Mr Trump are mostly unacceptable. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said Ukraine’s borders could not be changed by force. A cap on the country’s armed forces would leave it “vulnerable to future attack”, she said.
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Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said he was sceptical an agreement could be reached this week, given the “current differences”. One western ambassador said the Europeans would volubly praise Mr Trump’s peacekeeping efforts in the coming days, while quietly seeking to “rewrite” the plan and “make it sensible”.
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 Zelenskiy 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/Reuters
