Secretary of State Marco Rubio said late Saturday night that a 28-point White House-backed Ukraine peace plan “was authored by the U.S.,” contradicting several U.S. senators who said Mr. Rubio told them the peace plan was a “proposal delivered” by Moscow.
“The peace proposal was authored by the U.S.,” Mr. Rubio posted Sunday on X. “It is based on input from the Russian side. But it is also based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”
A U.S. congressional delegation to the Halifax International Security Forum said in a press conference that Mr. Rubio had spoken to them on Saturday while “on his way to Geneva,
The 28-point plan, according to multiple members of the delegation, was actually offered by Russia, not authored by the United States.
Sen. Mike Rounds, a Republican from South Dakota, was very explicit in saying that American negotiators were “the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives.”
“It is not our recommendation,” Mr. Rounds said. “It is not our peace plan.”
SEE ALSO: Trump says 28-point peace plan to end Russia-Ukraine war isn’t ‘final offer’
Mr. Rounds said Mr. Rubio directly told the delegation how the U.S. was provided the plan instead of authoring it themselves.
“He was on the plane when he called us,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire, said during the press conference. “[On his way] to meet with our European partners, to meet with a high-level Ukrainian delegation to discuss the 28-point plan that’s been circulating.”
The delegation, made up of a bipartisan coalition of members of the Senate intelligence, armed services and foreign affairs committees, described that 28-point plan as not being in line with the White House’s end goals for peace negotiations, saying that it is a “beginning point” instead.
Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine, said it was important for the plan to only be a starting point, calling it “simply the wish list of the Russians.”
The 28-point plan to end the Russia-Ukraine war is, according to the White House, not intended to be the final offer, though President Trump has publicly stated that he wants to see Ukraine accept a deal by Thursday — Thanksgiving Day.
Mr. Rubio is currently in Switzerland, where he joined a delegation that is expected to include the U.S. Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, members of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine and European leadership to discuss the current peace proposal.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the proposal, as it stood when widely leaked to the press, would push the country to “face a very difficult choice: either the loss of dignity or the risk of losing a key partner.”
