Peace plan for Ukraine Trump pushes the pace - with concessions to Putin if necessary
Meetings here, meetings there - US President Trump thinks that an end to the war can happen quickly. European supporters of Ukraine are calling for rapid clarity on security guarantees.
26.11.2025, 10:17
26.11.2025, 10:35
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- Donald Trump has relativized his deadline for peace in Ukraine, but continues to push for speed.
- While Secretary of State Daniel Driscoll is due to negotiate in Kiev next week, Steve Witkoff will probably fly to Moscow again.
- Witkoff has been criticized because Trump's confidant is said to have advised the Kremlin on how to deal with the US president.
- What Trump thinks about ceding territory and what the Europeans are now insisting on.
The USA is continuing to exert pressure in the talks on ending the war in Ukraine and is aiming for rapid progress. There are only a few points of contention left, wrote President Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform.
In the hope that the plan can be finalized, he instructed his negotiators to meet with representatives from Russia and Ukraine at the same time soon.
According to Trump, his special envoy Steve Witkoff will speak with Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin in Moscow "probably next week", while only the Pentagon Secretary of State Daniel Driscoll, who is acting as negotiator for Ukraine, remains.
Witkoff is said to have advised the Kremlin on how to deal with Trump
He had set "no deadline" for reaching an agreement, Trump said later on a flight to Florida. At the same time, the Republican defended Witkoff against accusations - which have also been raised within the presidential party - that he was too Russia-friendly and had thus disqualified himself as a negotiator.
Critics had criticized the original 28-point US peace plan - which Trump claims to have only understood as a "concept", although he had initially urged Ukraine to accept it by Thursday at the latest - as a one-sided "Russian wish list".
This is also due to the fact that Ukraine was pressured into making unacceptable territorial concessions. Trump has now rejected the accusation regarding the territorial cessions. "Ultimately, this is territory that could be conquered by Russia in the coming months anyway," he said on board the presidential aircraft Air Force One.
Europeans insist on security guarantees
The development is "only moving in one direction" - by which he means: in Russia's favor. Nevertheless, Moscow would also make concessions, namely "to stop fighting and not conquer any more land".
The coalition of the willing, who were taken by surprise by the draft from Washington, now want to establish reliable security guarantees for Ukraine, which they had missed in the original version.
The heads of state and government had agreed with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to "accelerate joint work with the United States to advance the design of the security guarantees", it said.
Lasting peace must be underpinned by robust and credible security guarantees in order to prevent future aggression by Russia.
How far do the USA and Ukraine agree?
The proposals discussed over the past few days are particularly concerned with how Ukraine can be protected against Russia's military consolidating, rearming and preparing another attack after the end of the war.
However, little has yet been made public about the specific form of such security measures. "It is in our common interest that security is real," said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in his evening video message yesterday (Tuesday).
He did not comment on details of the talks on a peace plan that had been held with the USA in Geneva at the weekend. However, work on the draft text continued yesterday. "The principles of this document can be further developed into the basis of a comprehensive agreement," Selensky explained.
According to information from the White House and Kiev, both sides are largely in agreement on a common position, to which Moscow would then have to respond.
Just details or unresolved key issues?
"There are a few delicate but not insurmountable details that need to be clarified and that require further discussions between Ukraine, Russia and the US," wrote Trump's spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt on the social network X.
It is unclear whether these "details" do not conceal the main question of how to deal with the Ukrainian territorial losses. The country, which was attacked by its neighbor Russia in February 2022 in violation of international law, has so far refused to cede any territory to the aggressor.
The major concessions demanded of Ukraine in the original US plan in turn raised the question of how important a form of deal acceptable to Kiev is to the US government.
According to media reports, another line of discussion was pursued yesterday in the Persian Gulf: A US delegation met with Russian representatives there in Abu Dhabi, according to reports. Today, the foreign ministers of the EU states want to discuss the latest developments in a video link in the late morning.
Rutte: "We are still a long way from reaching our goal"
One question is likely to be how the European Union can prevent the USA from forcing Ukraine to make too many concessions to Russia.
The Europeans see a major risk that the security situation could also deteriorate for them if the aggressor emerges as the clear winner of the conflict - and is thus encouraged to continue breaking international law in the future if the Kremlin believes it will gain an advantage.
Trump held out the prospect of meetings with Putin and Selensky - "but ONLY if the deal to end this war is FINAL or on the home stretch", as he wrote on Truth Social. Trump did not say whether he wanted to meet with them in pairs or in a three-way constellation.
Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte warned against expecting too much from a rapid realization of the peace plan pursued by the USA. "It contains some strong, but also some difficult elements that require more work and negotiations," Rutte told Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND) and the Spanish newspaper "El Pais". "We are still a long way from reaching our goal on the road to peace."
