US and Ukrainian officials to meet again on Donald Trump’s peace plan to end war with Russia

Talks between Washington and Kyiv over US President Donald Trump’s latest plan for peace in Ukraine are expected in Switzerland in the coming days, and plans for separate talks between the United States and Russia are underway, a US official said Saturday.

The flurry of new meetings is the Trump administration’s latest effort at pressuring Ukraine to accept a 28-point peace plan that calls for it to make concessions already largely rejected by the country’s president and allies, including giving up land and limiting the size of its military.

Mr Trump has said he wants a response from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky by Thursday, but also said the deadline could be extended “if things are working well.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, will head to Geneva on Sunday, the official said. They plan to join Daniel Driscoll, the secretary of the Army, who arrived there Saturday. In Geneva, the Americans will meet senior Ukrainian officials to discuss Kyiv’s response to the US proposal.

“Our representatives know how to defend Ukraine’s national interests and exactly what is needed to prevent Russia from carrying out a third invasion, another strike against Ukraine,” Mr Zelensky said in a social media post Saturday.

Ukraine’s European allies have criticised the proposal because it was initially negotiated between the United States and Russia, without Ukrainian involvement.

With the Thursday deadline, Mr Zelensky faces the risk of losing what remaining US support he has — much of it now in intelligence sharing — if he does not accept.

On Saturday, European leaders appeared to be searching for a way to push the proposal in a direction that might make it more palatable to Ukraine and to Europe. At a summit in South Africa, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer issued a statement saying that leaders in Johannesburg would discuss how to secure a ceasefire and strengthen the Trump plan “for the next phase of negotiations.”

The meeting between Washington and Moscow is expected to happen quickly as well, the US official said.

The document now being pushed by the White House was negotiated between Witkoff and a Russian official, Kirill Dmitriev.

Ukraine and Europe have said they had no input in the proposal, and European foreign ministers say the plan as it stands would weaken Ukraine’s long-term security.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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