Trump faces mounting criticism from US lawmakers and European officials over plan

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the Oval Office on October 7. Photo / Sarah L. Voisin, The Washington Post

United States and Ukrainian officials met in Geneva today to work through a new version of a controversial plan to end Russia’s war in Ukraine before a Thanksgiving deadline imposed by the US, while President Donald Trump faced mounting criticism from lawmakers and his own base over the proposal.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is leading the US delegation, sought to downplay widespread claims that the plan was written by the Russian side.

The leaked draft ignores many of Kyiv’s red lines: it would force Ukraine to shrink its army, give up land that Russia hasn’t managed to grab in nearly four years of war and would bar the presence of Nato troops, among other concessions.

Rubio told reporters in Switzerland that the initial plan was an early document that had received “input from both sides”.

The talks with Ukrainians were the most positive so far, Rubio said, but he declined to describe more details, citing the ongoing nature of negotiations.

“This is a living, breathing document. Every day, with input, it changes,” he said.

The top US diplomat also de-emphasised the deadline, suggesting more negotiations could be ahead. More talks are planned for this week, but details have not been released.

“The deadline is that we want to get this down as soon as possible,” Rubio said.

“The important point today is that we have made substantial progress.”

European officials, including those from France and Germany, have been working on a counter-proposal, according to a document obtained by the Washington Post, which would begin territorial negotiations at the front line – not beyond it – and give Ukraine “robust, legally binding security guarantees, including from the US”.

Rubio said he met with national security advisers of key European partners in Geneva, adding that they would have heard the “incredible amount of positivity from both the Ukrainian and American side about the progress we’ve made today”.

“We are co-ordinating our positions, and it is important that there is dialogue, that diplomacy has been reinvigorated,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on social media.

He said he had just spoken to French President Emmanuel Macron, adding that Ukraine was grateful to Trump for his efforts and for US leadership.

As the talks were ongoing, Trump took to social media to express his frustration over the delay in ending the war – something he claimed on the campaign trail he could do in “one day” and would accomplish before even returning to office.

Trump said on Truth Social that he “inherited” the war, that Ukraine’s leaders were not sufficiently grateful for US assistance, and that European countries were still buying oil from Russia. He did not criticise Russian President Vladimir Putin in the message.

Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, Olha Stefanishyna, told CBS that a separate framework document outlines potential US security guarantees to Ukraine, including pledges that Washington and its allies would assist if Ukraine faces aggression from Russian territory.

But, sounding sceptical, she noted that the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 began from Belarus’ territory, and that security pledges Kyiv received in 1994 after giving up nuclear weapons stationed on its territory were not honoured.

“We are a very complicated partner for [the] US because we also had a lot of different experiences,” Stefanishyna said.

Ukraine was uninvolved in the drafting of the document that would dictate its future, which was delivered in Kyiv on Friday by a US military delegation led by Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll.

US lawmakers are worried the proposed plan would further destabilise global security by rewarding Russia after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine – raising questions over why Trump needs the deal signed so urgently, even if it comes at the expense of American and Ukrainian interests.

“Some people better get fired on Monday for the gross buffoonery we just witnessed over the last four days,” Representative Don Bacon (R-Nebraska) posted on X yesterday. “This hurt our country and undermined our alliances and encouraged our adversaries.”

A group of senators told reporters at a weekend security conference in Canada that they had spoken with Rubio by phone and learned that the 28-point plan was not, in fact, spearheaded by the US.

Senator Angus King (I-Maine) said that according to Rubio, the plan “is not the Administration’s position. It is essentially the wish list of the Russians.”

Rubio “made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives”, Senator Mike Rounds (R-South Dakota) said during the Halifax International Security Forum.

“It is not our recommendation. It is not our peace plan.”

Rubio denied the senators’ statements hours later, writing on X: “The peace proposal was authored by the US. It is offered as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations.”

State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott called the senators’ comments “blatantly false”. In separate statements, Pigott and the White House said the plan “was authored by the US, with input from both the Russians and Ukrainians”.

The exchange marks another confusing development surrounding the plan that leaked last week and immediately sparked alarm over its origins on both sides of the Atlantic.

The White House has said the plan was drafted by Steve Witkoff and Kirill Dmitriev, the US and Russian special envoys.

Representative Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said today he had spoken with Rubio, along with several senators, and that he was told the plan was “a US document with input from Ukraine and from Russia”, though he acknowledged that it appeared the “inception” of the plan came from Witkoff and Dmitriev.

McCaul, a long-serving Republican who has clashed with the President on foreign policy issues, said on ABC that the negotiations would be ongoing and that he believed the US was flexible on its deadlines.

“About 80% of this deal, I think, they’re going to find agreement with as they go to Geneva,” McCaul added. “The problem is going to be the 20% of really tough items to negotiate.”

The White House and State Department did not respond to requests for additional comment.

Senator Mark Warner (Democrat-Virginia) sharply criticised the plan, telling ABC that “Neville Chamberlain’s giving in to Hitler [before] World War II looks strong in comparison” and that the plan resembles a set of “Russian talking points”.

The approach was backfiring on the Trump Administration, Warner added.

“The President is seeing this one-sided plan kind of blow up in his face with push-back from the Ukrainians, from the Europeans, from members of Congress of his own party,” Warner said, adding that he expected Trump would change his deadline.

A US official, who spoke like others on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that the President hasn’t been as involved in the specifics.

“You tell him, ‘I’m going to try to get a deal.’ He will say, ‘Great, go see what you can do.’ And that’s the level of detail he has,” the official said. “It’s been absolute chaos all day because even different parts of the White House don’t know what’s going on. It’s embarrassing.”

A European official said it seemed Washington was “almost taken by surprise on the whole thing”.

“Usually when there’s more to it, it feels different … Our feeling has been, DC has been taken by surprise by Witkoff’s actions,” the official said.

Defenders of the Trump Administration’s dealmaking efforts note that time is not on Ukraine’s side and say an agreement will protect Ukrainian sovereignty from Russia’s larger army, which continues to seize more territory from Kyiv.

“People trying to tear this agreement down just want the war to continue,” said Dan Caldwell, a former Pentagon official who worked on Ukraine issues under the Trump Administration.

“There is this persistent delusion that the US has a massive stockpile of munitions that we can dump in Ukraine, that there’s a magic sanctions package that will force the Russians to end the war and that Ukraine has the capacity to continue this war until they achieve total victory.

“That’s just not the case so the constructive thing to do is consider some of the realistic proposals US officials are putting forward,” he said.

Speaking with reporters on Sunday Trump said Zelenskyy had until Thanksgiving to agree to the plan or “continue to fight his little heart out” – only without American aid.

But privately, the Trump Administration was “not treating this plan as immovable”, said a person familiar with the negotiations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly.

It has been “communicated to the Ukrainians that there is some room for negotiations”. Still, Washington “also made clear that they want an agreement soon” and “the threat to suspend US assistance is dead serious”, the official said.

Questions remain over whether Trump’s team can reach an agreement with Ukrainian and European partners before the US-imposed deadline arrives.

Once again, Ukraine must try to convince an unpredictable White House that it’s Russia that must make concessions to its maximalist demands – not Ukraine.

“Any appeasement of Russia as the aggressor, any attempts at putting pressure on Ukraine as the victim of this aggression, is morally reprehensible and an outrage against human decency,” more than four dozen European and Ukrainian leaders wrote in a letter sent to Trump over the weekend.

“To bow before Russia is to abandon shared values and plunge the free world into anarchy and chaos. Strong American leadership is the only hope.”

They added, a “cowed America can never be great again. A cowed America can never be first”.

- John Hudson, Aaron Schaffer, Natalie Allison, Warren Strobel and Siobhan O’Grady contributed to this report.

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