Ukrainian officials made significant changes to a US-drafted peace deal during negotiations with their US counterparts in Geneva on Sunday, The Guardian has reported.
The original 28-point plan leaked to the media was substantially altered during the talks, led by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the US side and Andriy Yermak, a senior aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, on the Ukrainian side, and was reduced to 19 points.
“As of now, after Geneva, there are fewer points, no longer 28, and many correct elements have been incorporated into this framework,” Zelensky said on Monday.
It’s unclear exactly what changes were made to the plan, but the main objections from Ukrainian officials and their European backers were the provisions requiring Ukraine to cede territory it controls in the Donbas to Russia and the guarantees that Ukraine won’t ever join NATO.
According to a report from the Financial Times, the US and Ukrainian officials left the most sensitive details, including territorial lines and Ukraine’s relationship with NATO, to be decided by Zelensky and President Trump, who are expected to meet soon.
“Our team has already reported today on the new draft of steps, and this is indeed the right approach – I will discuss the sensitive issues with President Trump,” Zelensky said.
Also on Monday, Yury Ushakov, an aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said he expects Moscow to hear from Washington about holding talks on the potential peace plan. “You know, I would proceed from the fact that it would probably be natural to assume that the Americans would come in to meet us face-to-face and start a discussion,” he said.
Ushakov also said that he was aware of a European counter-proposal that stripped the Ukrainian territorial concessions from the US plan and left the door open for Ukrainian NATO membership, calling it “entirely unconstructive and unsuitable for us.”
While the original US proposal includes some provisions Russia would likely not accept, such as using frozen Russian funds for reconstruction and investment in Ukraine, Putin has said that it could “form the basis for a final peace settlement.”
