As Trump pushes Russia-Ukraine peace plan, skepticism remains

Flying to Florida for the Thanksgiving holiday, President Donald Trump lamented a stubborn item remaining on his peacemaking to-do list: ending the Russia-Ukraine war.

“We settled eight wars and I thought this would be one of the easier ones because of my relationship with President Putin, but this is probably one of the more difficult ones. There’s a lot of hatred,” Trump said aboard Air Force One on Tuesday.

This week, U.S. officials are jetting between Kyiv and Moscow in an effort to get Russia and Ukraine on board with a peace deal. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hopes of a sit-down with Trump appear unlikely to be fulfilled this week. Trump posted to Truth Social that he was sending special envoy Steve Witkoff to Moscow to consult with Russian President Vladimir Putin on changes to the proposed peace plan. He said Army Secretary Dan Driscoll will head to Kyiv to do the same.

“It has been a long and difficult day,” Zelenskyy said in a video address on Tuesday night. He said talks with the U.S. negotiators and Europeans have gone well. He did not address the fact that his meeting request was rebuffed.

“He would like to come, but I think we should get a deal done first,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday. “We won’t know for a little while, but we’re making progress.”

On Sunday, Driscoll, Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio presented a 28-point plan, crafted with Russian input, to a Ukrainian delegation in Geneva. The two delegations whittled it down to 19 points during the five-hour discussion. While the White House claims peace is near, Russia has not yet signed on to the new version. U.S. lawmakers protest that the process has been too favorable to Putin, and experts debate whether Trump’s approach seeks peace or a foreign policy bandage.

“All that was is a map, that was not a plan,” Trump said. “It was a concept.”

According to a White House readout, the Ukrainian delegation left the Geneva talks satisfied that the new points reflect its national goals, including security guarantees, sovereignty, and freedom of navigation.

“It is in our shared interest that security is real,” Zelenskyy said. “I count on continued active cooperation with the American side and President Trump. Much depends on the United States because it’s America’s strength that Russia takes most seriously.”

But security guarantees and land rights remain the sticking points. Not everyone is convinced a breakthrough is imminent.

“This administration has approached the war as if it’s been a dispute over territory or alliances or lesser motivations rather than national survival,” said Philip Wasielewski, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. “In reality, the nature of Putin’s war has two goals: Destroy Ukrainian national identity and reestablish Moscow’s control over its former Soviet and tsar’s empire in Eastern Europe.”

The delegation in Geneva took out the elements that had made Russia satisfied that its national interests were met. In the original 28-point version, Ukraine would limit its military to 600,000 soldiers, drop its dreams of NATO membership, and recognize Crimea, Luhansk, and the entire Donetsk region as Russian territory. While the new plan has not been publicly released, Ukraine’s signing on suggests that Russia will not.

“Anything that the Ukrainians agree to, I don’t see Putin getting on board,” said Shelby Magid, deputy director of the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council.

Magid was pessimistic that the deal would bring any progress toward real peace. While the talks were “moving in a good direction,” Magid said, she argued that some of the most important points—in particular, the issue of whether Ukraine must permanently forfeit land now under Russian occupation—remain absent from the talks.

“I think it’s positive that the Ukrainians have shown … that they’re not the obstacle,” Magid said. “They’re willing to make concessions, they’re willing to engage.”

Wasielewski agreed that negotiations are unlikely to result in a peace deal.

“Neither side can give up. Both sides face great military and economic challenges, and the outcome of the war may depend on which side can last until those challenges collapse the other,” he said. “The differences between the war aims of the two parties really do not allow for a negotiated settlement because what they’re fighting for are so vital for each side.”

The White House continues to signal optimism. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a post on Tuesday that ongoing talks would address a few “delicate, but not insurmountable details.”

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., claimed in a thread on social media that the United States isn’t demanding enough concessions from Russia.

“The most basic reality on the ground is that the price of peace matters. A deal that rewards aggression wouldn’t be worth the paper it’s written on. America isn’t a neutral arbiter, and we shouldn’t act like one,” McConnell said.

Other members of Congress also criticized the administration’s handling of the negotiations after Bloomberg published a leaked transcript of a call between special envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian senior foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov. According to that transcript, Witkoff coached the Russian team on how to pitch a peace plan to Trump, recommending that they highlight and praise the president’s desire for peace.

“For those who oppose the Russian invasion and want to see Ukraine prevail as a sovereign & democratic country, it is clear that Witkoff fully favors the Russians,” Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., posted to X. “He cannot be trusted to lead these negotiations.”

Sumantra Maitra, a senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America, argued that the original 28-point plan, authored without Ukrainian input, should have been adopted, without the promise of U.S. security for Ukraine against future Russian aggression. Instead, he said American neutrality could hold Russia in check without committing military might to Ukraine, which he says is not a vital ally.

“The idea that guarantees Ukrainian neutrality and freezes the conflict in its current line would be a much better way to satiate Russia and by that way deter Russia from further expansion,” he said. “The Russians might be malleable about the land concessions, but their biggest concern is any kind of military security guarantee or treaty from the United States.”

When the war started in 2022, the Biden administration urged a Ukraine-inclusive negotiating approach, under the shorthand phrase, “Nothing about Ukraine, without Ukraine.”

Magid wondered if a similar pattern is now at work.

“I don’t think we’re at the ‘About Ukraine, without Ukraine’ point,” she said. “But we’re teetering close to it.”

Trump originally gave Zelenskyy a Thanksgiving deadline to agree to the 28-point plan. On Air Force One, he admitted that any deadlines are now up in the air.

“They’re talking about going land both ways and trying to clean up a border,” Trump said. “It’s a complicated process, doesn’t go that quickly.”

When a reporter asked what concessions Trump wanted to see Russia make, the president answered, “Well, they’re making concessions. Their big concession is they stop fighting and they don’t take any more land.”