U.S. and Ukrainian officials are discussing the potential of bringing President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the U.S. this week as part of President Trump’s push to get an agreement on Ukraine by Thanksgiving, according to multiple U.S. and Ukrainian officials familiar with the discussions.
Whether Zelenskyy’s trip happens is dependent on the outcome of peace negotiations in Geneva on Sunday, the officials said. Mr. Trump himself has described the deadline as flexible, and he told reporters on Saturday the plan was “not my final” proposal.
Speaking from Geneva, Secretary of State Marco Rubio touted progress in discussions with a cadre of European and Ukrainian officials, but said more work would need to be done.
“I think this was a very, very meaningful – I would say probably best – meeting and day we’ve had so far in this entire process, going back to when we first came into office in January,” he said. “But there’s still some work left to do and that’s what our teams are going to be doing right now,” Rubio added, promising updates after additional meetings.
“We have very good progress and we are moving forward to the just and lasting peace,” said Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, after meeting with Rubio.
There are no hard plans for a Zelenskyy visit at this moment given the active diplomacy nor are there scheduled talks with or in Russia at this point, according to a senior White House official. Another possible outcome of the negotiations in Geneva is that Army Secretary Dan Driscoll could travel to Russia or meet with Russian officials elsewhere, according to another U.S. official. Russian officials told CBS News that nothing yet is scheduled.
Ukraine’s response to the 28-point memo
Ukraine’s Ambassador to the U.S., Olga Stefanishyna, told “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Sunday that her country had not agreed to all the terms in the draft 28-point peace plan that leaked to the press last week.
“This plan is not about justice and the truth of this war and the aggression,” Stefanishyna said. “It’s about, you know, ending the war and stopping the military engagement.”
Stefanishyna said that Russia has not made any concessions to date and that none of the points in the leaked 28-point plan are related to forcing anything on the Russian side.
In addition to the proposal, an early draft of which was leaked by an opposition politician in Ukraine and verified by the White House, there is an accompanying document related to security guarantees, according to U.S. and Ukrainian officials.
Stefanishyna also confirmed that there is an additional document to the 28 points and referred to it as “the framework of security assurances.” She said it states the intention of the U.S. to provide something along the lines of Article 5 of the Washington NATO Treaty, such as a defense promise. However, unlike that NATO guarantee, the security assurances do not have a detailed layout of security guarantees nor the weight of Congressional approval and backing that would come with a treaty. That is a challenge for Ukraine, Stefanishyna said, in part because of past failures by the West to live up to security assurances given when Ukraine handed over its nuclear weapons as part of the 1994 Budapest memorandum.
Why now?
A U.S. official told CBS News that Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to believe that he will take the Donetsk region of Ukraine one way or the other – either through a negotiated settlement or on the battlefield. The Trump administration’s negotiations in Geneva began from the premise that Putin is correct. While that same U.S. official declined to provide a U.S. assessment of whether Ukraine is losing the war in the East, the U.S. official
said that the trajectory of the fighting points to Russia taking Donetsk. The official indicated that the Russian progress in the eastern frontline city of Pokrovsk, which is a logistics hub for Ukraine, was not a positive sign for Kyiv’s defensive prospects. Russian media often refers to Pokrovsk as the “gateway” to Ukraine’s industrial Donbas region.
Inter-Trump administration confusion
There were separate but parallel diplomatic efforts on Ukraine taking place within the Trump administration that are now being merged.
Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and U.S. special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff have been working on what they refer to as a “term sheet” to end the war, mimicking their broad-strokes proposal for a Gaza ceasefire. While the Trump administration put sanctions on Russian oil and gas to bring Putin to the negotiating table, Putin advisor Kirill Dmitriev was already at a table in Miami talking to Witkoff at the end of last month.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at the time dismissed Dmitriev as a “Russian propagandist,” but it was Dmitriev who helped draft this 28-point proposal that the U.S. is now backing. A senior White House official told CBS News that Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio were kept “apprised” of those talks, which happened in Miami last month. At a time when Zelenskyy is facing a domestic political scandal at home, the Kushner-Witkoff term sheet leaked to the press via an opposition politician in Ukraine and through an interview Dmitriev did with Axios.
On Saturday, a number of senators, including Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, as well as Republican Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota and independent Sen. Angus King of Maine, said that Rubio had explained to them that the 28-point proposal was not of American origin and assured them that he personally had not heard of any threat to cut off U.S. military and intelligence sharing with Ukraine if it did not agree to terms. Rubio posted Saturday on social media that the “plan was authored by the U.S.”
However, a Ukrainian official and a U.S. official told CBS News that the threat had been made during talks with other senior U.S. officials in Kyiv. Driscoll, a close friend of Vance’s, led a delegation there last week. He’s now in Geneva as part of talks.
A senior White House official acknowledged to CBS News that the threat to cut off aid to Ukraine may have been implied but not explicitly stated during talks with Ukraine’s leadership when U.S. officials said that Mr. Trump is getting “weary and frustrated” and cannot keep doing this forever.
The same senior White House official told CBS News that Vance and Rubio held a call Saturday night with Driscoll and U.S. military leadership in order to answer questions from lawmakers. Rubio made additional phone calls to lawmakers, which Shaheen, King and Rounds detailed
“There are many problems with the plan as it has been reported, but the two most obvious are that it rewards Russia’s illegal and unprovoked aggression by handing over substantial portions of Ukraine’s sovereign territory, and its security guarantees against further Russian aggression are vague and inadequate,” Senator King said in a statement Sunday. “I hope that after consultation with Ukraine and the Europeans, a more fair and responsible agreement will emerge.”
When did the Army become involved in diplomacy?
Driscoll has been in contact with Ukrainian officials in recent weeks and was originally planning to go to Ukraine in mid-December to discuss drone technology, but he was recently asked by Mr. Trump to restart talks about a ceasefire. Driscoll’s role in the talks has involved details of the security guarantees being given to Ukraine.
Driscoll combined his two missions on this trip. While Driscoll was en route to Ukraine, the 28-point plan was leaked by an anti-Zelenskyy politician. After this point, the Driscoll mission was “adjusted” to involve the emerging diplomacy building off the leaked Kushner-Witkoff term sheet, according to multiple U.S. officials familiar with the planning.
The U.S. officials declined to discuss details of how the 28-point plan, or the additional security guarantee document have changed in the past few days.
Vance has been a driving force behind the Ukraine diplomacy, according to a European diplomat and a source familiar. His close friend Driscoll has become a key conduit.
Political implications
The Trump administration has been reaching out in the past few days to respond to senators and congressmen including powerful, pro-Ukraine Republicans who are upset with the reported concessions being asked of Ukraine. Republican Rep Mike McCaul, chair emeritus of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, publicly acknowledged the outreach from Vance-Rubio and said he was assured it was a U.S. proposal not a Russian one.
The Trump administration is sensitive to the idea of a rift between Rubio and Witkoff. It was Witkoff who engineered the August summit with Putin in Alaska.
There has been much retroactive policymaking and recasting of events as we’re seeing from the on camera remarks made by Rubio’s old colleagues who may recall he was a Russia hawk during his Senate days. Since his time in the Senate, Vance has been consistent in arguing that Ukraine should not be a top priority for the U.S. Meanwhile, Witkoff has been trying to get Mr. Trump the deal to end the war that he so desires.