How Rubio tried to pull a controversial peace plan for Ukraine back to the middle

How Rubio tried to pull a controversial peace plan for Ukraine back to the middle

In the days after the Trump administration floated a draft peace deal for Ukraine that drew sharp criticism at home and abroad, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio quietly stepped in to prevent the negotiations from collapsing. What followed was a series of tense meetings in Geneva, an attempt to calm angry allies and a hurried effort to trim a plan that many viewed as leaning heavily toward Moscow’s demands, the New York Times reported.

The drama began with President Trump’s announcement of a firm Thanksgiving deadline for President Volodymyr Zelensky to accept a 28-point framework negotiated through back-channel talks with Russian and Ukrainian envoys. The threat that Ukraine would be left “to fight his little heart out” caught even officials within the administration off guard. By the time the week ended, that deadline had evaporated and the 28-point proposal had been pared down by a third.

From hard deadline to a softer framework

The Geneva discussions, led directly by Rubio, lasted roughly eleven hours. Some of the most contentious ideas were pushed aside for later rounds: restrictions on the size of Ukraine’s military, a blanket ban on NATO personnel in the country and an implied acceptance of Russian control over occupied territories. Those edits made the document more palatable for Kyiv, but also made it harder for Moscow to accept. Even within Rubio’s team, there was acknowledgment that the Russian president might simply dismiss the reworked draft.

The revisions also underlined how differently each side saw the stakes. American officials had approached the plan as a set of bargaining positions meant to be whittled down. Russia viewed the issue through the prism of historical entitlement and strategic depth. Ukraine and its European supporters saw it as a test of whether borders could be changed by force without consequence. Those competing perspectives shaped every hour of the Geneva conversations.

A fumbled rollout and angry allies

The internal confusion over the plan’s rollout only intensified the tensions. The White House was blindsided by the leak of the original proposal, first reported by Axios. Rubio played down the document as a collection of ideas, while Trump and senior aides treated it as a near-final agreement. European governments were angered at being excluded from a process that directly affected their security and financial commitments. Ukrainian officials, who had been working to rebuild ties with Washington, were alarmed that the plan appeared to concede too much before formal negotiations even began.

Pressure inside the administration had been building for months. Since the Gaza cease-fire deal in early autumn, Trump had grown more impatient with what he viewed as slow progress on Ukraine. That frustration led to a meeting involving Trump, Rubio, Vice President JD Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. The group was asked to explore whether the momentum from the Middle East could be extended to Europe. That effort led first to a discreet session in Miami with Kirill Dmitriev, a senior Russian economic official, and later to a quiet meeting with Rustem Umerov, Ukraine’s national security adviser.

Drafting a plan tilted toward Moscow

The result was a proposal shaped more by Russia’s stated wishes than Ukraine’s. Rubio acknowledged in conversations with senators that the first drafts drew heavily from what the Russians had communicated in recent months, including through informal channels known as non-papers. Although he later clarified that he did not consider the document a Russian plan, he did not dispute that Moscow’s starting positions had informed much of its structure. What remained uncertain was how extensively Ukraine’s preferences had been incorporated.

European anger deepened as the contents of the draft circulated. Germany’s chancellor underscored that any agreement must deter future Russian aggression and warned that a weak settlement would destabilize Europe as a whole. In Washington, senior Republicans joined Democrats in criticizing the plan, arguing that it risked rewarding an invasion that had already cost tens of thousands of lives.

Rubio’s Geneva damage control

By the weekend, Rubio was attempting to salvage the process. He met Ukrainian and European officials in Geneva and reframed the document as a preliminary outline rather than a final American proposal. Previous administrations had often used such drafts as a way to open conversations rather than close them, and Rubio leaned on that logic, describing the text as a starting point for both sides to react to.

After the meetings, some of the most controversial provisions were removed or rewritten. The White House confirmed that requirements related to troop caps, NATO restrictions and territorial concessions had been softened. Zelensky said publicly that several of the “right elements” had now been included and indicated that he planned to raise remaining issues with Trump directly. But those changes struck at the core of what Moscow has repeatedly demanded, creating doubts about whether Russia would engage with the revised version at all.

Russia has shown little sign of wanting to end the conflict on terms that would limit its gains. Putin has rejected every proposed cease-fire floated by Washington this year, and battlefield activity has continued even as the diplomatic manoeuvring unfolds. Hours after the Geneva meetings concluded, explosions were reported across Kyiv as Ukrainian air defences responded to another large-scale attack.

An uncertain road ahead

Rubio’s intervention may have steadied the process, but the roadmap ahead remains unclear. The United States is preparing to present the revised framework to Moscow, and Ukraine is weighing how far it is willing to compromise. The Thanksgiving deadline has disappeared, replaced by a more open-ended wait for two leaders — neither known for backing down easily — to signal their next move. Whether the Geneva revisions mark the beginning of a genuine negotiation or simply another detour in a conflict now nearing its fourth year is still uncertain.