The plan for ending the war in Ukraine was developed from a document prepared by Russia and handed to U.S. officials after an Oct. 17 meeting in Washington between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the sources said.
According to those sources, Moscow shared a paper setting out its conditions for ending the conflict with senior U.S. officials following the Washington meeting. The document had no official status but used language Russia had employed in earlier negotiations.
The Russian paper repeated demands previously rejected by Kyiv, including that Ukraine relinquish a significant part of its territory in the east of the country, the sources said.
Reuters reported in October on the existence of the Russian document. The agency said Wednesday that this is the first confirmation the paper was a key element in the U.S. 28-point peace plan. It remains unclear why and how the Trump administration began to base its own initiative on the Russian text.
Some senior members of the U.S. administration who saw the document, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, believed Moscow’s conditions would likely be rejected by Ukraine, the sources said. After receiving the Russian paper, Rubio discussed it by phone with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, they added.
Rubio confirmed this week in Geneva that he had received “numerous informal documents and materials of this kind,” but did not provide details.
The peace plan was developed at least in part at an October meeting in Miami attended by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Few State Department and White House staff were informed about that meeting, they said.
The original version of the U.S. plan was poorly received by Ukraine and its European allies, who felt it was too accommodating to Russia, the sources said.
Following negotiations held since the weekend, nine points have been removed from the plan. However, several issues – especially any potential territorial concessions by Ukraine – still need to be agreed, the sources added.
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Source: Reuters, RMF24