After weekend of chaos, US and Ukraine announce ‘refined’ peace plan drafted in Geneva

An “updated and refined” peace framework to end the war in Ukraine was drafted during talks between the US and Ukraine in Geneva on Sunday following international pushback against an initial US-backed peace plan that would have forced Kyiv to make painful concessions to Moscow. 

In a joint statement, Washington and Kyiv said their delegations had held “constructive, focused and respectful” talks over the White House’s controversial 28-point plan, and reaffirmed their “shared commitment to achieving a just and lasting peace”.

“The discussions showed meaningful progress toward aligning positions and identifying clear next steps”, the statement read, adding that both sides agreed that “any future agreement must fully uphold Ukraine’s sovereignty and deliver a sustainable and just peace”.

Both delegations agreed to continue “intensive work on joint proposals” and maintain “close contact with their European partners” over the coming days, the statement continued, with final decisions to be taken by US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Just hours earlier, Trump had hit out at the Ukrainian leadership, accusing it of showing “zero gratitude” for Washington’s efforts to end the war, even as the White House piled pressure onto Kyiv to accept its plan in time for Thanksgiving on Thursday.

In an extraordinary development on Saturday, a group of US senators said that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio — one of the key authors of the plan alongside White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff — had told them the 28-point document was a “wish list of the Russians” rather than the Trump administration’s own position, with some claiming the plan may even have first been written in Russian before being translated into English.

Rubio denied those claims, insisting that the proposal was “authored by the US” and “based on input” from both Moscow and Kyiv. Earlier reports had suggested that the plan was drafted by Witkoff and Rubio in consultation with Kremlin Special Envoy Kirill Dmitriev, who said last week that Moscow felt its position on the war was “really being heard” by the Trump administration.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, meanwhile, said on Sunday that “it would be good to know” who the document’s authors were and where it was drafted before world leaders began to use it as a basis for a negotiated end to the war. 

Kyiv’s allies had harshly criticised Washington’s initial peace proposal, which demanded that Ukraine cede the whole of Crimea and Donbas to Russia, as well as Russian-occupied areas of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, reduce its military from almost 900,000 to just 600,000 personnel, and amend its constitution to formally renounce its goal of joining NATO.

On Saturday, Ukraine’s European partners as well as the UK, Canada and Japan issued a statement warning that the Trump administration’s draft plan would require “additional work” to make its terms less favourable to Russia.

“We are clear on the principle that borders must not be changed by force”, the statement read. “We are also concerned by the proposed limitations on Ukraine’s armed forces, which would leave Ukraine vulnerable to future attack”.

By Sunday evening, however, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted the US president was “quite pleased” with how talks were progressing.