By Max Hunder, Emma Farge and Olivia Le Poidevin
KYIV/GENEVA (Reuters) -The United States and Ukraine pressed on with talks in Switzerland on Monday to come up with a mutually acceptable peace plan, after agreeing to modify a U.S. proposal that Kyiv and its European allies saw as a Kremlin wish list.
Washington and Kyiv said in a joint statement they had drafted a “refined peace framework” after a first day of talks in Geneva on Sunday, although they did not provide specifics.
The United States blindsided Kyiv and European countries with a 28-point peace plan last week, giving Ukraine until Thursday to agree to a framework to end Europe’s deadliest war since World War Two.
After Sunday’s talks, no public statement was released on how the revised plan would handle contentious issues such as how to guarantee Ukraine’s security against future Russian threats and how to fund the rebuilding of Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said negotiations were still ongoing.
KYIV STILL LOOKING FOR COMPROMISES, SAYS ZELENSKIY
“We all continue working with partners, especially the United States, to look for compromises that will strengthen but not weaken us,” Zelenskiy said via video link from a separate summit of Ukraine’s allies in Sweden.
Zelenskiy said Russia must pay for the war in Ukraine and that a decision on using frozen Russian assets was crucial.
“Right now, we are at a critical moment, and we are working with the United States, European partners, and many others to define steps that can end Russia’s war against us, against Ukraine, and bring real security.”
U.S. President Donald Trump has kept up the pressure on Ukraine to reach a deal. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who led the American delegation during Sunday’s talks, said the deadline to reach a deal by Thursday might not be set in stone.
Zelenskiy could travel to the United States as soon as this week to discuss the most sensitive aspects of the plan with Trump, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The initial 28-point proposal put forth by the United States last week called on Ukraine to cede more territory, accept limits on its military and abandon its ambitions to join NATO, Russian demands that Ukrainians have long rejected.
“Trump’s special plan is, in general, a capitulation for Ukraine,” said Anzhelika Yurkevych, a 62-year-old civil servant in Kyiv. “I think the Ukrainian people will not agree. Even if they sign, they need to be implemented, the Ukrainian people will be the ones to do it. And they do not agree with this.”
Parliamentary speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk said Ukraine stood by its red lines, insisting membership of the EU and NATO must be elements of Ukraine’s security guarantees and any peace plan.
The original plan came as a surprise even to some U.S. officials. Two sources said on Saturday it was crafted at an October meeting in Miami that included special envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Kirill Dmitriev, a Russian envoy who is under U.S. sanctions.
Underscoring the war’s toll, Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv was hit by what officials said was a massive drone attack that killed four people on Sunday.
With smoke rising from the rubble, one man was seen crouched and holding the hand of a dead body.
“There was a family, there were children,” said Ihor Klymenko, Red Cross Commander of the emergency response team in Kharkiv. “I can’t tell you how, but the children are alive, thank God, the man is alive. The woman died, unfortunately.”
EUROPEAN NATIONS ISSUE COUNTER-PROPOSAL
Democratic lawmakers have criticized the peace plan as essentially a Russian wish list, but Rubio has insisted that Washington authored the plan with input from both sides in the war.
European allies said they were not involved in crafting the original plan, and they released a counter-proposal that would ease some of the proposed territorial concessions and include a NATO-style security guarantee from the United States for Ukraine if it is attacked.
Some EU leaders will meet to discuss Ukraine on the sidelines of an EU-African Union summit in Luanda on Monday, with others dialling in via video conference.
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said talks on amending the 28-point plan had produced a “decisive success” for Europeans.
“All issues concerning Europe, including those concerning NATO, have been removed from this plan – this is a decisive success that we achieved yesterday,” Wadephul told Deutschlandfunk radio, without offering specifics.
“It was clear from the outset, as we have repeatedly said, that any agreement must not be reached over the heads of Europeans and Ukrainians,” he added.
Russian forces have slowly gained ground in some regions, while Ukraine’s power and gas facilities have been pummeled by drone and missile attacks, leaving millions of people without water, heating and power for hours each day.
(Reporting by Max Hunder, Emma Farge, Olivia Le Poidevin, Anna Voitenko, Vitalii Hnidyi, Friederike Heine; Writing by Andy Sullivan and Matthias Williams; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Peter Graff)
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