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

Donald Trump said he would dispatch special envoy Steve Witkoff to meet Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Moscow in another push 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 a deal was within reach before meeting Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Putin.

“I look forward to hopefully meeting with President Zelenskyy and President Putin soon, but ONLY when the deal to end this War is FINAL or, in its final stages,” the US president said in a social media post on Tuesday.

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

Trump’s remarks came just hours after Russia signalled it could reject a modified US peace plan to end the war if the proposal did not satisfy Moscow’s long-standing demands, even as Kyiv indicated it had agreed a framework with Washington.

Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that if the revised 19-point plan “erased . . . key understandings” that Putin thought he had reached with Trump in Alaska in August, the “situation will be fundamentally different”. He added that, to date, “no one has officially handed us anything”.

The initial 28-point plan offered significant concessions to Russia and sparked deep alarm among officials in Europe and Ukraine.

Trump said on Tuesday that the plan had been “drafted by the United States” and had been “fine-tuned, with additional input from both sides”. He added that there were only “a few remaining points of disagreement”.

But the latest proposal is less favourable to Moscow, leaving the most sensitive topics to be decided by Trump and Zelenskyy.

Senior Ukrainian officials close to the president told the Financial Times on Tuesday that those included territorial issues and US security guarantees, but added that Kyiv had agreed to cap its army at 800,000.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Tuesday evening, Trump backed away from a firm deadline to reach an agreement.

“I don’t have a deadline. You know what the deadline for me is? When it’s over,” he said.

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

“We put a 20-point Trump plan together . . . I’m thinking maybe we do the same thing with you,” Witkoff said, according to a transcript of the call obtained by Bloomberg.

Witkoff referred to negotiations around Ukraine handing over the rest of Donetsk province, which Russia has been unable to seize since it began its offensive there in 2014. This has been a long-standing Ukrainian red line.

“I know what it’s going to take to get a peace deal done: Donetsk and maybe a land swap somewhere. But I’m saying instead of talking like that, let’s talk more hopefully because I think we’re going to get to a deal here,” he said. The FT has not independently verified the transcript.

Officials in Europe struck a cautiously optimistic note about the revised plan, as Trump expressed confidence about a deal to an audience at the White House.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said there had been progress to ensure the draft plan reflected Ukraine’s needs. Speaking on a call between leaders of the so-called coalition of the willing on Tuesday, Starmer said Zelenskyy had indicated that “the majority of the text” could be accepted.

Starmer said the grouping of three dozen countries needed to continue preparing “robust” 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 co-ordination between the US and Europe.

“We need strong transatlantic co-operation. Because it delivers,” she said after the meeting.

The coalition had set up a working group with the US to discuss what role Washington could play in bolstering a European security force in Ukraine once a ceasefire comes into force, according to a senior French official.

Lavrov sought to contrast the latest text with the discussion between Trump and Putin at the Anchorage, Alaska, summit, a meeting that alarmed Kyiv and European capitals.

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

In Alaska, Trump said the US was willing to recognise Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and push Ukraine to pull back from some frontline positions in the Donbas region in the east of the country if Moscow stopped the fighting.

As Washington continues its push to end the war, Driscoll held negotiations in Abu Dhabi with Ukraine’s military intelligence chief and a Russian delegation.

The senior French official said the talks in Abu Dhabi were expected to focus on the modalities of a ceasefire and creating the conditions that would allow for a full peace.

Driscoll, an ally of US vice-president JD Vance, began talks with the Russians on Monday night, according to an American official and two people familiar with the meeting.

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

Since being blindsided by the emergence of the 28-point plan last week, Kyiv’s European allies have raced to support Zelenskyy and pushed back on some of its most contentious points.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday warned against a deal that amounted to “capitulation” for Ukraine, and emboldened Russia “to go further towards other Europeans and puts all of our security in danger”. 

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

France, the UK, Turkey and other countries would also be prepared to provide a “reassurance force” far from the frontline to provide training and security, he said.

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