But while Donald Trump, outraged by the leak of the plan, saw the draft agreement as a good one, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio took action. And as it turns out, the American president is not invulnerable. According to the first draft of the agreement, Ukraine clearly got the short end of the stick, then the situation started to change.
While Donald Trump criticized the Ukrainians on social networks, the member of his government responsible for diplomacy, that is, Marco Rubio, tried to achieve changes in the agreement. He flew to Geneva, and during a series of intensive 11-hour negotiations, the original 28-point plan was eventually whittled down to 19 demands.
According to the latest developments, it seems that the Ukrainian president is ready to accept “most” of the US proposal – at least that’s what British Prime Minister Keir Starmer claims. According to the American representatives, the process has been successful so far and only a few “small but insurmountable details” remain to be resolved to complete the agreement.
Already on Monday, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavittová presented that after Rubio’s negotiations in Geneva, they feel that “we are in a very good position”. However, as the Trump administration itself admits, everything will ultimately rest on Vladimir Putin. And no one can predict with certainty whether the Russian president will be willing to back down from the demands.
“Drone Guy” Dan Driscoll
In Geneva, Rubio first met (along with Steve Witkoff, Jared Kuchner, and Dan Driscoll) with Ukrainian and European officials, and further negotiations began immediately afterward. The negotiations in Abu Dhabi, which have been ongoing since Monday, have been without official confirmation of the presence of delegations from Ukraine or Russia.
However, US military spokesman Jeffrey Tolbert says that US Defense Secretary Dan Driscoll and his team are continuing to negotiate with the Russians about a lasting peace in Ukraine – and are “remaining optimistic”. The head of Ukrainian intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, is also participating in the meeting.
The involvement of a representative of the Ministry of Defense in diplomatic talks is at least unusual. The aforementioned 38-year-old Army veteran Dan Driscoll, who is also a close friend of Vice President JD Vance, was originally supposed to travel to Kyiv to discuss drone technology. However, he received an unexpected task from Trump – the “drone guy”, as the American president calls him, was supposed to force Ukraine to return to the negotiating table with Russia as soon as possible.
Driscoll had no previous diplomatic experience – however, the White House expected that as a member of the military, he could motivate both sides to dialogue. At least the Ukrainians trust the representatives of the American army, since they have been helping them with the training of their armed forces for years. However, as it turns out, it is not Dan Driscoll and his team who are behind the agreement, which is conciliatory towards Ukraine.
Rubio is behind the deal
For such a form of agreement, or plan, it took place for the most part over the weekend in Geneva and under the leadership of Marco Rubio with the participation of special envoy Steve Witkoff. The team was buoyed by the success of brokering a ceasefire in Gaza in September. Trump then urged his key advisers to build on that success and focus on the Ukraine-Russia deal. For Trump, the inability to resolve the years-long war is a source of great frustration.
he then described to reporters that the basic document, which was “approved and contributed to by both parties”, had been started almost three weeks before the media got to it. And Rubio had to act. The leaders of the EU, but also the Ukrainians, were really dissatisfied. From the Americans, they perceived the discussions about the agreement without their presence as a betrayal. And according to American senators, even the Minister of Foreign Affairs was not satisfied with the proposal.
They described to reporters how Rubio told them that the document was largely composed by Russians and was not an American creation. “It’s not our peace plan,” South Dakota Republican Senator Mike Rounds paraphrased Marco Rubio to reporters. Accordingly, Rubio said that while they put forward one side’s proposal in the deal, there remains an opportunity for the other side to respond.
Open to change
Rubio initially denied ever saying it was a Russian document. But that changed in Geneva. “We started from an early stage of this process with our understanding of the Russian position, which was communicated to us in various ways,” he said on Sunday.
Understanding the Russian position gradually led to changes in the agreement. They refer to the omission of parts that would make it practically impossible for Ukraine to join NATO and that would prohibit NATO member states from gathering security forces on the territory of Ukraine. The amendments should also have affected the part of the text with the request that Ukraine cede territory to Russia.
On Tuesday evening, information appeared in the media that both sides had achieved in most points, she claimed. The problem, however, is three key areas that affect the negotiations most of the time – the territory, the state of the army and joining NATO. The parties have not yet agreed on the question of whether Ukraine will give up the annexed but unconquered territory. Ukraine does not even agree with limiting the size of its army to 600,000 – it came up with the figure of 800,000. This number roughly corresponds to the current size of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The demand that Ukraine give up its ambition to become a member of NATO is also unacceptable for Kyiv. According to the Ukrainians, this would create a precedent that would basically give Russia the right of veto against the North Atlantic Alliance. That’s why President Zelensky was restrained on Tuesday evening. “After the meetings in Geneva, we see many perspectives that can make the path to peace a reality. We have achieved solid results, there is still a lot of work ahead,” X wrote on the social network.
What about Putin?
But now comes the hard part: these are the demands that Putin cares about the most. Donald Trump therefore announced on Tuesday evening that he had ordered Steve Witkoff to meet with the Russian president in Moscow. Dan Driscoll is scheduled to meet with the Ukrainians at the same time.
And then, as the two reach an almost finished agreement, the negotiations will culminate in Trump’s meeting with Putin and Zelensky. So the American president hopes so. “I look forward to meeting with President Zelensky and President Putin soon, but UNTIL the agreement to end this war is FINAL or in its final stages,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
He claims that his team has made “enormous progress” over the past week and, according to him, “only a few points of disagreement remain” between the Russians and the Ukrainians.
