U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday his plan to end the war in Ukraine has been “fine-tuned” and he’s sending envoy Steve Witkoff to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll to meet with Ukrainian officials.
He suggested he could eventually meet with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but not until further progress has been made in negotiations.
“I will be briefed on all progress made, along with Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles,” Trump added in the social media posting. “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.”
Trump spoke after Driscoll held talks late Monday and throughout Tuesday with Russian officials in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, to discuss the emerging proposal.
“The talks are going well and we remain optimistic,” Lt. Col. Jeff Tolbert, spokesman for the Army secretary, said in a statement.
As the talks were taking place, Russia launched a wave of overnight attacks on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, with at least seven people killed in strikes that hit city buildings and energy infrastructure. A Ukrainian attack on southern Russia killed three people and damaged homes, authorities said.
Still, Trump expressed a measure of optimism that his administration’s diplomatic efforts could soon lead to a breakthrough. Witkoff, a real estate developer turned diplomat, has been Trump’s chief interlocutor with Putin, while Driscoll, who is close to Vance, has stepped up his involvement in the administration’s peace push in recent days.
Trump’s plan for ending the nearly four-year war emerged last week. It heavily favored Russia, prompting Zelenskyy to quickly engage with American negotiators. European leaders, fearing for their own future facing Russian aggression but apparently sidelined by Trump in drawing up the proposal, scrambled to steer the negotiations toward accommodating their concerns.
“I think we’re getting very close to a deal. We’ll find out,” Trump said in an aside during the annual White House turkey pardon, a typically lighthearted annual event to mark the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. He added, “I thought that would have been an easier one, but I think we’re making progress.”
Latest phase of talks
French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday peace efforts are gathering momentum and “are clearly at a crucial juncture.”
He spoke after senior U.S. and Ukrainian officials met in Geneva on Sunday and a virtual “coalition of the willing” meeting of Ukraine’s European allies took place on Tuesday. Rubio took part in both gatherings.
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“Negotiations are getting a new impetus. And we should seize this momentum,” he said during the video conference meeting of countries, led by France and the U.K., that could help police any ceasefire with Russia.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said of the talks: “I do think we are moving in a positive direction and indications today that in large part the majority of the text, (Zelenskyy) is indicating, can be accepted.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney also participated in Tuesday’s talks. His office said Carney “reaffirmed Canada’s willingness to contribute to the success of the peace process in collaboration with key partners.”
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand later appeared to suggest the current proposal still needs work while speaking to reporters in Ottawa on Tuesday.
“There’s more work to do to ensure that Ukraine’s interests are fulfilled,” she said. “Those include the sanctity of its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and in particular the ability for Ukraine to maintain that sovereignty in the short and long term.”
Oleksandr Bevz, one of the Ukrainian delegates at the Geneva talks also cautioned that it was “very premature to say that something is agreed upon.”
In an interview with The Associated Press in Kyiv late Tuesday, he declined to discuss the specifics of any amendments to Trump’s plan, but said the U.S. was aware that the strength of security guarantees for Ukraine would “define the sustainability of the deal” and was “the part making this deal real and enforceable.”
Bevz earlier told the AP that the number of points in the proposed settlement was reduced, but he denied reports that the 28-point U.S. peace plan now consisted of 19 points.
”(The document) is going to continue to change. We can confirm that it was reduced to take out points not relating to Ukraine, to exclude duplicates and for editing purposes,” Bevz said, adding that some points relating solely to relations between Russia and the U.S. were excluded.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday that the coalition of the willing meeting showed “solid and encouraging progress” on a peace deal in Ukraine while criticizing Moscow’s latest attack on Kyiv and drone incursions in Romania and Moldova.
“Since pressure remains the only language Russia responds to, we will continue to increase it until there is a genuine willingness to engage on a credible path toward peace,” she said.
Long road to peace
Zelenskyy said late Monday that “the list of necessary steps to end the war can become workable.” He said he planned to discuss “sensitive” outstanding issues with Trump.
Rustem Umerov, a senior adviser to Zelenskyy, posted on X on Tuesday that Zelenskyy hoped to finalize a deal with Trump “at the earliest suitable date in November.”
Russian officials have been reserved in their comments on the peace plan. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday that Moscow is in touch with U.S. officials about peace efforts.
“We expect them to provide us with a version they consider an interim one in terms of completing the phase of coordinating this text with the Europeans and the Ukrainians,” Lavrov said.
European leaders have cautioned that the road to peace will be long.
'Glass rained down'
Russia fired 22 missiles of various types and more than 460 drones at Ukraine overnight, Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram. The strikes knocked out water, electricity and heat in parts of Kyiv. Images showed a large fire spreading in a nine-story residential building in Kyiv’s eastern Dniprovskyi district.
Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said 20 people were wounded in Kyiv. The Russian Defense Ministry said it targeted military-industrial facilities and energy assets. The strikes were a response to Ukrainian attacks on civilian objects in Russia, the ministry said.
Liubov Petrivna, a 90-year-old resident of a damaged building in the Dniprovskyi district, told the AP that “absolutely everything” in her apartment was shattered by the strike and “glass rained down” on her.
Petrivna said that she didn’t believe in the peace plan now under discussion.
“No one will ever do anything about it,” she said. Russian President Vladimir Putin “won’t stop until he finishes us off.”
Large Ukrainian drone attack
The overnight Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s southern region of Krasnodar was “one of the longest and most massive” and wounded six people, Gov. Veniamin Kondratyev said.
Russian air defenses destroyed 249 Ukrainian drones overnight above various Russian regions and the occupied Crimean Peninsula, the Russian Defense Ministry said Tuesday.
Ukraine said that its drones and missiles struck an aviation repair plant and a drone production facility, as well as an oil refinery and an oil terminal.
It was the fourth-largest Ukrainian drone attack on Russia since the start of the war on Feb. 24, 2022, according to an AP tally.
Isobel Koshiw reported from Kyiv, Ukraine. John Leicester in Paris, Stephen McGrath in Leamington Spa, England, and Chris Megerian in Washington contributed to this report.
—With additional files from Global News
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