President Donald Trump said Saturday his proposed peace deal is not his final offer to Ukraine, underscoring that his administration is pushing hard to end the war.
The White House has given Kyiv a Thanksgiving deadline to accept the terms or risk losing U.S. support. But European leaders are voicing concern over provisions that would require Ukraine to cede territory to Russia and limit the size of its military.
Asked by reporters Saturday whether this was his last offer, Trump replied, “No.”
“We’d like to get to peace,” Trump said. “One way or another we’ll get it ended.”
Trump’s remarks came as the administration sent top officials overseas to push for the proposal.
Earlier this week, the White House presented Kyiv with a new 28-point peace plan drawn up in coordination with Moscow that contains conditions that are widely seen in Ukraine as effectively demanding the country’s capitulation.
A U.S. delegation that includes Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and envoy Steve Witkoff will meet in Geneva, Switzerland, with a Ukrainian delegation, a top U.S. official told ABC News Saturday.
Additionally, the official said there are plans for the U.S. delegation to hold a separate meeting with a Russian delegation. No details were provided about the location of the planned meeting with the Russians.
On Saturday, a bipartisan group of senators added another wrinkle to the delicate negotiations over the peace plan, saying they were told by Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a phone call that the 28-point plan was not developed by the U.S.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said Rubio called the senators while on his flight to Geneva.
Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., who was on the phone call, said in a joint press conference Saturday that the 28-point plan “is not our peace plan; it is a proposal that was received” and that the U.S. acted as an intermediary in sharing it with Ukraine.
Sen. Angus King, independent of Maine, described the plan as a “Russian wish list.”
In a statement on social media Saturday evening, Rubio denied the senators’ claims, asserting “the peace proposal was authored by the U.S.”
Rubio did not directly respond to the senators’ characterization of his message to them.
He the proposal as “a strong framework for ongoing negotiations,” adding, “It is based on input from the Russian side. But it is also based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”
Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office said Saturday that “consultations on steps to end the war will take place in the coming days.”
“Yesterday, the President of Ukraine approved the composition of the Ukrainian delegation and the directives for the relevant talks,” the president’s office said in a statement posted on social media. “We anticipate constructive work and are ready to advance as swiftly as possible to achieve a real peace.”
“Ukraine never wanted this war and will make every effort to end it with a dignified peace,” the statement continued. “Ukraine will never be an obstacle for peace, and the representatives of the Ukrainian state will defend legitimate interests of the Ukrainian people and the foundations of European security. We are grateful for our European partners’ willingness to help.”
Rustem Umerov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said in a post Saturday, “we are starting consultations between high-ranking officials of Ukraine and the United States on the possible parameters of a future peace agreement in Switzerland.”
Driscoll and Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George led an American delegation to Kyiv on Wednesday, with a U.S. official confirming to ABC News that the group was read in on the new peace plan. The U.S. military officials are the most senior delegation to visit Ukraine since President Donald Trump took office in January.
“Since the first days of the war, we have taken one, extremely simple position: Ukraine needs peace,” Zelenskyy said in his Friday evening address. “And a real peace — one that will not be broken by a third invasion.”
Driscoll met with Zelenskyy for an hour on Thursday and discussed “a collaborative plan to achieve peace in Ukraine,” according to a U.S. official.
“This is a comprehensive plan to end the war,” the official said of the plan, which was described as a collaboration between the U.S. and Ukraine.
The plan includes a number of maximalist demands that the Kremlin has long demanded and that have been previously dismissed as non-starters for Kyiv, including that Ukraine cut its armed forced by more than half and cede swaths of territory not yet occupied by Russia, according to a Ukrainian official.
Ukraine would also be forbidden from possessing long-range weapons, while Moscow would retain virtually all the territory it has occupied — and receive some form of recognition of its 2014 seizure of Crimea under the latest proposed U.S. plan.
Several foreign allies expressed criticism and concern over the U.S.’s proposal.
European Union leaders, joined by the Canadian and Japanese prime ministers, released a joint statement from the G20 summit in South Africa saying the proposal “includes important elements that will be essential for a just and lasting peace.”
The statement singles out Ukraine having to cede land to Russia and limit the size of its military as two main issues in the plan.
However, they added that they see it as “a basis which will require additional work.”
