EUROPEAN LEADERS URGE WIDER CONSULTATIONS
According to the White House, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff have been quietly working on the peace plan for a month, receiving input from both Ukrainians and Russians on terms that are acceptable to each side.
Witkoff and Kirill Dmitriev, a close adviser to Putin, have been key to drafting the proposal.
As reports about the draft emerged, blindsided European diplomats insisted they and Ukraine must be consulted.
“For any plan to work, it needs Ukrainians and Europeans on board,” European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said at the start of a meeting in Brussels of the 27-nation bloc’s foreign ministers.
She also suggested that the draft would be too favourable toward Moscow.
“We haven’t heard of any concessions on the Russian side,” Kallas said.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer called for a solution that “fully” involves Kyiv.
In a phone call with Zelenskyy, they said: “All decisions with implications for the interests of Europe and NATO require the joint support and consensus of European partners and NATO allies.”
UN chief Antonio Guterres, meanwhile, said any peace solution should “abide by the resolutions of the General Assembly that clearly indicated that the territorial integrity of Ukraine … must be respected”.
Ukraine’s deputy UN Ambassador Khrystyna Hayovyshyn told the UN Security Council that Kyiv has officially received Trump’s draft peace plan and is ready “to work constructively”, but she stressed Ukraine’s “red lines.”
“There will never be any recognition, formal or otherwise, of Ukrainian territory temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation as Russian,” she said. “Our land is not for sale.”
“Ukraine will not accept any limits on its right to self-defence or on the size and capabilities of our armed forces, nor will we tolerate any infringement on our sovereignty, including our sovereign right to choose the alliances we want to join,” Hayovyshyn added.
