The proposal, a 28-point plan, calls for Ukrainian concessions already largely rejected by the country’s president and allies. Trump gave President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine until Thursday to agree to the plan, though he said Saturday the plan was “not my final offer” and suggested that the deadline could be extended should progress be made in negotiations.
It remained unclear Saturday how much wiggle room Ukraine and its European allies would have to change the proposal. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, will head to Geneva on Sunday, where they are expected to meet senior Ukrainian officials to discuss Kyiv’s response to the American proposal, a U.S. official said Saturday.
Even before the latest proposal was made public last week, Ukraine’s allies in Europe and across the globe faced pressure to show they could get Ukraine the economic and military support it needs to continue battling Russia should the United States cease its contributions. Germany, which is already Ukraine’s largest military backer in Europe, this month pledged an additional $3.5 billion in assistance for next year, and France and Sweden recently pledged hundreds of new fighter jets.
Though couched in diplomatic language, public statements from European leaders about the new proposal, including at Saturday’s G20 meeting, made clear that their support for Ukraine was unwavering, whatever the pressure from the White House. In a joint statement adopted Saturday the leaders of 11 nations — including Germany, France, Britain, Japan and Canada — and the European Union said the 28-point plan included “important elements that will be essential for a just and lasting peace.”
But they also made clear that they took issue with provisions of the plan that would strip Ukraine of territory and limit the size of its armed forces.”What is at stake is Ukrainian sovereignty and European security,” President Emmanuel Macron of France said Saturday, adding that European countries would work with the Ukrainians over the next two days to create a plan for the way forward.”Our problem is not the U.S.,” Macron told reporters at the G20 summit. “Our unique problem — all of us — is Russia, who started this war, who refused to take the ceasefire proposals.”
How much influence European leaders might have at this point in the war is unclear. Together with Ukraine, they have been cut out of the deliberations that produced this latest proposal. In the past though, Europe’s unified support of Kyiv together with the stubborn refusal of Russian President Vladimir Putin to back down from his maximalist demands have been enough to at least preserve the status quo and keep Ukraine in the fight.
Macron said negotiating teams from the European Union, Germany, Britain and France would meet with American and Ukrainian negotiators in Geneva “to be able to bring substance back to the table and reconcile all these views.” This will be followed by a meeting of the “coalition of the willing,” a group of more than 30 countries supporting Ukraine, he said.
Saturday’s meeting took place on the sidelines of the Group of 20 heads of state summit, an annual gathering that brings together leaders of the world’s largest economies to try to agree on shared ambitions on the most pressing global issues. The United States did not send a delegation; Trump said he was boycotting it because of his belief that South Africa was persecuting its white minority.
But all other countries and regional bodies belonging to the group sent delegations, and they quickly released a declaration agreed upon by most of them, including Russia. It included a call that “all states must refrain from the threat or use of force to seek territorial acquisition,” and for an agreement to work toward peace in several conflicts, including the war in Ukraine.
The 28-point plan was worked out between Putin’s special envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, and Witkoff, to the exclusion of Ukraine and Europe. It calls for Ukraine to surrender significant territory, including land that Russia does not already occupy. It also calls for a limit on the size of Ukraine’s military, and prohibits its membership in NATO and the presence of NATO troops in the country.
Putin has said the plan could “serve as a foundation for a final peace agreement.”
As the war approaches the start of its fifth year, Zelenskyy has acknowledged that Ukraine is under pressure like never before, and not just because of Trump’s demands.
On the battlefield, Ukrainian forces are steadily losing ground, though they are inflicting severe costs on the Russians in lives and materiel. Politically, Zelenskyy’s government is facing accusations of large-scale corruption by senior officials and must contend with increasingly vociferous calls from his opponents for a significant response.
But while polls show that Ukrainians are much more supportive of a negotiated settlement today than at the war’s start, many officials, commentators and Ukrainians across the country have described Trump’s latest proposal as tantamount to capitulation. Faced with Trump’s Thursday deadline, Zelenskyy has begun to prepare his people for what he has suggested could be an existential decision.
“Ukraine may find itself facing a very tough choice,” Zelenskyy said in an address to the nation Friday. “Either the loss of our dignity or the risk of losing a key partner. Either the difficult 28 points, or an extremely hard winter — the hardest yet — and the dangers that follow.”
In Johannesburg on Saturday, the G20 gathering put supporters of Ukraine in the same room with a Russian delegation led by a top deputy of Putin, who did not attend because he faced an international arrest warrant.
António Costa, the president of the European Council, and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, held a call with Zelenskyy on Friday night, and after that met with Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni. On Saturday morning, they met with Macron.
The larger meeting Saturday included the leaders of Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Italy and Spain.
In remarks Friday, von der Leyen said, “Ukraine can count on us because this is not only an aggression against Ukraine, but it is an aggression against the principles of the U.N. charter,” referring to the United Nations.
“It’s on European soil,” she added. “Therefore, we will support Ukraine for as long as it takes.”
