Donald Trump sends top envoy to Russia to finalise US peace plan for Ukraine

Donald Trump said he will send his special envoy Steve Witkoff to meet Russian president Vladimir Putin in Moscow in another effort to secure a peace plan to end the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine.

The US president said his negotiators had made “tremendous progress” in ending the war – but he would wait until an agreement was within reach before meeting Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky and Putin.

“I look forward to meeting with President Zelensky and President Putin soon, but only when the agreement to end this war is final or in its final stages,” the US president said in a social media post on Tuesday.

Trump said Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who has emerged as an unlikely diplomat in US efforts to end the war, will meet with Ukrainian officials.

Trump’s comments came just hours after Russia indicated it might reject a revised US peace plan to end the war if the proposal did not meet Moscow’s long-standing demands, even as Kiev indicated it had agreed to a framework with Washington.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that if the revised 19-point plan “erases…the main understandings” that Putin thought he had reached with Trump in Alaska in August, “the situation will be radically different.” He added that so far, “no one has handed us anything officially.”

The initial 28-point plan made major concessions to Russia and sparked deep concern among officials in Europe and Ukraine.

Trump said on Tuesday that the plan was “drafted by the United States” and was “modified with additional input from both sides.” He added that there were only “a few remaining points of contention.”

But the latest proposal is less favorable to Moscow, as it leaves the most sensitive topics to be decided by Trump and Zelensky.

Senior Ukrainian officials close to the president told the Financial Times on Tuesday that those issues include regional issues and US security guarantees, but they added that Kiev had agreed to set a ceiling on the number of its army at 800,000 soldiers.

On Tuesday, Bloomberg reported that Witkov advised Putin’s top foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov in an October phone call on how to pitch a peace deal to Trump, suggesting they are emulating his approach in securing a deal in Gaza.

“We put together Trump’s 20-point plan,” Witkoff said, according to a transcript of the call obtained by Bloomberg. “I think we might do the same thing with you.” The FT has not independently verified the text.

Officials in Europe struck a cautiously optimistic note about the revised plan on Tuesday, with Trump expressing confidence in reaching a deal before a White House audience, saying “we’ll get there.”

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said progress had been made to ensure the draft plan reflected Ukraine’s needs. Speaking during a call between leaders of the so-called Coalition of the Willing on Tuesday, Starmer said Zelensky had indicated that a “majority of the text” could be accepted.

Starmer said the group of thirty countries needed to continue preparing “strong” security guarantees for Ukraine to deter future Russian attacks. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also joined the call.

Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, stressed the need for close coordination between the United States and Europe.

“We need strong transatlantic cooperation,” she said after the meeting. “Because it is working.”

The coalition has formed a working group with the United States to discuss the role Washington could play in strengthening the European security force in Ukraine once the ceasefire enters into force, according to a senior French official.

Lavrov sought to compare the latest text to the discussion between Trump and Putin at the Anchorage summit in Alaska, a meeting that raised concern in Kiev and European capitals.

“After Anchorage, when we thought that these understandings had already been formalized, there was a long pause,” Lavrov said. “And now the pause has been broken by the submission of this document… A whole series of issues there, of course, require clarification.”

In Alaska, Trump said the United States was ready to recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and push Ukraine to withdraw from some front-line positions in the Donbas region in the east of the country if Moscow stops fighting.

Putin insisted that an agreement would not be possible if it did not address what he called the “root causes” of the conflict, which he shorthanded for regime change in Kiev, an end to NATO expansion and Western arms supplies to Ukraine.

While Washington continues its efforts to end the war, Driscoll held negotiations in Abu Dhabi with the head of Ukrainian military intelligence and a Russian delegation.

The senior French official said that the talks in Abu Dhabi are expected to focus on ways to ceasefire and create conditions that allow complete peace.

Driscoll, an ally of US Vice President J.D. Vance, began talks with the Russians on Monday evening, according to a US official and two people familiar with the meeting.

The composition of the Russian delegation was not immediately clear, and it was not clear whether the three parties in Abu Dhabi were meeting together or speaking separately.

The talks in the United Arab Emirates came as Moscow targeted energy infrastructure and bombed residential buildings in an overnight attack on Kiev, killing at least six people and wounding 13 others, according to city officials.

Since being stunned by the emergence of the 28-point plan last week, Kiev’s European allies have rushed to support Zelensky and pushed back on some of the more controversial points.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday warned of an agreement that amounted to Ukraine’s “surrender” and encouraged Russia to “move towards other Europeans and put our entire security at risk.”

Speaking to radio station RTL, Macron added that only Kiev should decide on territorial concessions, while the use of frozen Russian assets located in Europe should be decided by Europe.

He added that France, the United Kingdom, Turkey and other countries would also be prepared to provide a “reassurance force” away from the front line to provide training and security.

Additional reporting by Ben Hall in London, Ian Johnston in Paris and Henri Foy in Brussels