(NewsNation) — U.S. and Ukraine representatives who met Sunday in Geneva to discuss a rapidly developing peace plan with Russia have made “substantial progress,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.
Rubio would not offer details but said a 26- or 28-point proposal could be drafted as early as Thanksgiving, a previous deadline that he says the White House has now softened.
The potential deal may identify territory that Ukraine would cede to Russia while setting postwar conditions to preserve peace.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has not outright rejected the plan but came to the table this weekend with serious questions.
Still, in a subsequent statement Sunday night, the White House said the Ukrainian delegation “affirmed that all of their principal concerns — security guarantees, long-term economic development, infrastructure protection, freedom of navigation, and political sovereignty — were thoroughly addressed during the meeting.”
It added that the Ukrainians “expressed appreciation for the structured approach taken to incorporate their feedback into each component of the emerging settlement framework.” The White House said changes made to the proposal now reflect “their national interests” and provide “credible and enforceable mechanisms to safeguard Ukraine’s security in both the near and long term.”
Russian representatives were not present Sunday, but Russian President Vladimir Putin has praised an earlier version of the proposal, saying it could form the basis of a final peace settlement.
Oleksiy Goncharenko, a member Ukraine’s Parliament, told NewsNation he wants to be optimistic about the proposed peace deal, but believes some of the plan needs to be rewritten.
“We need peace here as soon as possible,” Goncharenko said.
Trump posted to X Sunday morning, saying he “inherited a war that should have never happened.”
“The War between Russia and Ukraine is a violent and terrible one that, with strong and proper U.S. and Ukrainian LEADERSHIP, would have NEVER HAPPENED,” Trump wrote in part.
He continued to throw jabs at Ukraine.
“UKRAINE ‘LEADERSHIP’ HAS EXPRESSED ZERO GRATITUDE FOR OUR EFFORTS, AND EUROPE CONTINUES TO BUY OIL FROM RUSSIA.”
The origins of the plan are in question, with some U.S. senators claiming Russia authored it. The dispute over whether the peace plan was written by Russia began after U.S. senators spoke on the phone with Rubio during his flight to Geneva for negotiations.
According to the senators, Rubio told them that the U.S. had received the proposal through an intermediary and then passed it along. However, both the White House and the State Department now dispute the Senators’ account.
Rubio has since stated, “The peace proposal was authored by the U.S.”
State Department Spokesperson Tommy Pigott said on X, “This is blatantly false. As Secretary Rubio and the entire Administration has consistently maintained, this plan was authored by the United States, with input from both the Russians and Ukrainians.”
A senior U.S. official told NewsNation the U.S. peace plan was authored by the U.S. with input from both sides, and it is not a Russian-authored document.
“As the Administration has consistently maintained, this plan was authored by the United States, with input from both the Russians and Ukrainians,” the senior official said. “This plan has always been a hopeful start to continued negotiations, and eventually the signing of a final peace agreement once and for all.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.