US peace plan: success for Europeans – but what does Putin say?

Ukraine war

US peace plan: success for Europeans – but what does Putin say?

The American push for an end to the Ukraine war shocked Europeans. Now there has been renegotiation. The discussions are beginning to bear fruit.

Europe scores a success in the negotiations over the US peace plan for the war in Ukraine. According to German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, all questions relating to NATO and the EU were removed from the draft during the talks in Geneva.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had previously said that EU and NATO issues should be treated separately. He said they wanted to get the opinions of their allies. According to information from the German Press Agency, the current plan is shorter than the old one.

Ukraine was also satisfied with this stage of the consultations.

There was initially no official reaction from Moscow to the status of the negotiations. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to the state news agency Tass, that Russia does not yet have official information about what was worked out in Geneva. A meeting of the Russian and US delegations is not yet planned this week.

Russian President Vladimir Putin described US President Donald Trump’s original 28-point plan as a basis for achieving peace.

As at the G20 summit in Johannesburg, the heads of state and government of the European Union are also using the opportunity at the EU-Africa summit in Angola to coordinate on the issue of Ukraine. EU Council President António Costa telephoned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Luanda to obtain first-hand information. Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) is also at the summit.

A central demand of the Europeans, which French head of state Emmanuel Macron also made at the crisis meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in South Africa, now appears to have been fulfilled.

Rubio assured that the opinions of allies would be sought when their interests were at stake. “This is a decisive success that we achieved yesterday,” said Wadephul on Deutschlandfunk.

For example, it concerns the use of the Russian central bank’s money fixed in the EU and Ukraine’s possible membership in NATO or the EU.

In Geneva on Sunday, negotiators from Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, the EU, Ukraine and the United States discussed the US plan. Critics viewed it as extremely beneficial for Russia and almost a capitulation for Ukraine.

The negotiating teams left Geneva after the talks.

Ukraine and the US agreed to continue intensive work on the proposal “in the coming days” and continue to coordinate closely with European partners, said a joint statement distributed in Kiev and Washington. Final decisions on the new plan would be made by Trump and Zelensky,