This new round of diplomatic bargaining comes at a time when Donald Trump is under pressure on the domestic front, notably as a consequence of the Epstein affair. It also comes as Volodimir Zelensky has been weakened by a corruption scandal involving two ministers and a businessman who is co-owner of Zelensky's production company.
For the American president, it is therefore an opportune moment to once again turn the spotlight on Ukraine and try to force Zelensky into making concessions. On Friday, two sources told Reuters that the United States was threatening to suspend intelligence sharing and the supply of weapons to Ukraine.
A plan favorable to Russia
The United States presented a 28-point plan last week that appears to largely meet Russia's demands. Marco Rubio reportedly told several US senators on a call that it was a "Russian wish list": the Secretary of State later publicly denied having made these remarks.
However, in practice, the plan largely favors Russia, as it provides for Ukraine to give up territory, agree to reduce the size of its army and renounce its ambitions of joining NATO. It also calls for the lifting of Western sanctions on Russia, its reintegration into the G8 and a general amnesty.
Europeans, aware of the need to keep Donald Trump engaged at their side and not to appear as those blocking peace, have described the plan as a "working basis". However, the initial proposal, which looks like a capitulation for Ukraine, is unacceptable to Kyiv, as well as its European allies.
In Geneva on Sunday, Marco Rubio therefore sought to douse the flames by meeting a Ukrainian delegation, accompanied by German, French and British representatives.
Following this meeting, the United States and Ukraine said in a joint statement that they had drawn up a "new, improved version of the peace plan". Indeed, President Zelensky could even travel to Washington this week.
Meanwhile, the Europeans have submitted a revised version of the US plan for Ukraine. They will meet again tomorrow for a summit of the "coalition of the willing".
Blowing hot and cold
All this is reminiscent of August: the Anchorage summit with Vladimir Putin, followed three days later by a meeting at the White House with the Ukrainian president and several European leaders. The meeting in Alaska gave the impression that Donald Trump was awarding the point to Russia, but the Europeans ultimately managed to pull Trump back toward their concerns; in particular the need to provide security guarantees to Ukraine.
Meeting between Donald Trump and several European leaders at the White House on 18 August.
The outcome of that sequence: little concrete progress on resolving the conflict. By contrast, the mere fact of receiving Vladimir Putin with full honors on US soil was a "victory" for the Kremlin. Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, under an International Criminal Court arrest warrant, had been suffering from a degree of diplomatic isolation.
Since Anchorage, Donald Trump had appeared to move closer to Ukraine. In late September, during a meeting with Volodimir Zelensky on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, he said Russia was a "paper tiger" and that Ukraine has the capacity to retake all of its territory. And last month, he imposed sanctions on Russia for the first time, targeting oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil. A few days later, he ditched the idea of holding a summit with Vladimir Putin in Budapest, acknowledging that he could obtain nothing from the Russian side.
A major sticking point
It is too early to know what will emerge from the current diplomatic sequence. What is clear is that Donald Trump has set a deadline of Thursday 27th - Thanksgiving Day in the United States. On Sunday, however, Marco Rubio suggested that this deadline could change.
Substantively, there does not appear to be much progress in the talks. The Europeans and the Ukrainians want a ceasefire: stop the fighting first, then discuss the terms of peace. The Russians, however, do not want a ceasefire; they want a peace treaty straight away, one that addresses the "root causes" of the conflict. In reality, this stance enables them to prolong the war and continue gaining ground while their negotiators regurgitate the same obsessions.
Then there is the issue of security guarantees, which is crucial for the Ukrainians. Russia has a bad habit of not honoring the agreements it signs. Everyone remembers the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear weapons in exchange for respect of its territorial integrity.
This question of security guarantees is the main sticking point in the negotiations. The Europeans would like to be able to send troops to guarantee the ceasefire on land, at sea and in the air, all with an American backstop. However, the presence of Western troops in Ukraine is an absolute red line for Moscow.
In the meantime, Donald Trump is growing impatient. He keeps talking about a "war that should never have happened". It is his way of saying that Russia would never have invaded Ukraine if he had been president, and of shifting the blame onto Joe Biden and Volodimir Zelensky.
But it has now been a year since he was re-elected, and his diplomatic efforts have so far borne no fruit. This, despite his fondness for presenting himself as a president of peace, with the Nobel Prize as a constant backdrop to his ambitions. During the campaign, he had hoped to resolve the conflict in 24 hours. "I ended eight wars. The only one I have not yet managed to end - and it will happen - is that between Russia and Ukraine, which I thought would be the easiest because I have an excellent relationship with President Putin," he conceded in his interview on 60 Minutes at the beginning of the month.
