US President Donald Trump has said his proposed peace plan for Ukraine is “not my final offer”, after a furious backlash from Ukrainians who compared it to Neville Chamberlain’s 1938 Munich agreement with Adolf Hitler. Speaking at the White House on Saturday, Trump said: “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 are due to meet in Switzerland on Sunday for talks on the plan, with security officials from France, Britain and Germany expected to join them in Geneva. The US state department has denied claims by US senators that secretary of state Marco Rubio described the proposal as “a wish list of the Russians”, calling the assertion “blatantly false”. Rubio later said the plan was authored by the US “as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations” based on input from both sides.
The 28-point document, which Trump has given President Volodymyr Zelenskyy until Thursday to sign, calls on Kyiv to cede territory it currently 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, Zelenskyy warned his country faces an impossible choice between keeping its national dignity and losing US support, calling it “one of the most difficult moments in its history”.
On Saturday, Zelenskyy said real or “dignified” peace was always based on “guaranteed security and justice”. He announced a negotiating team led by his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, to meet US counterparts in Geneva. Former defence minister Rustem Umerov said consultations would focus on “the possible parameters of a future peace agreement”, adding: “Ukraine approaches this process with a clear understanding of its interests.”
Ukrainian reaction to the plan, drawn up by Putin’s envoy Kirill Dmitriev and Trump’s representative Steve Witkoff, has been overwhelmingly hostile. Mustafa Nayyem, a leader of Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan revolution, said it invited parallels with Chamberlain’s Munich deal, with the victim invited “to formulate his own defeat so everyone else can live easier”. He expressed outrage at the “full” amnesty for Russian war crimes, calling it an insult to victims of atrocities in Bucha and Mariupol. At a G20 meeting in South Africa, EU and Nato leaders pushed back, saying the plan needs “additional work” and consultation on provisions that rule out Kyiv’s Nato membership and condition its EU accession.
