Friday:
That story:
Trump told Fox News on Friday that Ukraine had “got to give up some land that they have not lost in the war”. He added: “We are in it for one thing, we want the killing to stop . . . They lost 25,000 people last month, between the two countries . . . It’s out of control. It’s a bloodbath.”
Later on Friday Trump responded to Zelenskyy’s comments, saying the Ukrainian president would “have to like” the US plan.
“At some point, he’s going to have to accept something,” he added. The president also referred to his confrontation with Zelenskyy in the White House in February, when he and vice-president JD Vance berated the Ukrainian leader. “You remember not so long ago, right in the Oval Office, I said ‘you don’t have the cards’ . . . I thought he should have made a deal a year ago, two years ago.”
[…]
Trump told Fox that “we think [that Thursday] is an appropriate time” but suggested the deadline could be extended.
In a sign of the increasing pressure on Kyiv, the American side had “signalled” that vital US intelligence and weapons deliveries could be halted if Zelenskyy did not sign up to the proposal, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Zelenskyy’s administration has told allies that Kyiv felt it needed to engage with the proposal, but wanted European capitals to oppose it and attempt to convince Trump to change course, according to officials briefed on the discussions.
Following an hour-long phone call with Vance, Zelenskyy said they had discussed the plan and “we’re working to make the path forward dignified and truly effective for achieving a lasting peace”.
In a day of frantic diplomacy, Zelenskyy and the leaders of France, Germany and the UK insisted that the current front line between Ukrainian and Russian-controlled territories should be the “starting point for any understanding”.
They added that “the Ukrainian armed forces remain capable of effectively defending Ukraine’s sovereignty”.
The call between the leaders is set to be followed by in-person meetings at the G20 summit in Johannesburg. It came as European capitals reeled at the scale of US pressure on Ukraine to agree to it, according to people involved in the talks.
“We’re all still analysing it, but it’s moving much faster than we had realised,” one of the people said. “It basically means capitulation.”
A senior European official said: “We’re back to square one,” referring to widespread fears at the start of this year that Trump would force Kyiv to accept Russia’s peace demands or lose US military support.
The US cut off intelligence sharing and slowed weapons deliveries this year, but later provided intelligence to help guide Ukraine’s strikes on Russian energy sites.
The latest plan has alarmed European governments not just because of the proposed recognition of the Ukrainian territories of Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk as “de facto Russian” but also because of a suggested ban on Nato forces in Ukraine.
Under the proposal, US sanctions would be lifted in stages and Moscow would be invited to rejoin the G8 group of highly industrialised nations — ending its years of international isolation after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and forced annexation of Crimea in 2014.
It would also deploy $100bn of frozen Russian sovereign assets in reconstruction projects profiting the US.
On Saturday, Marco Rubio called in to a meeting of national security Senators and confirmed that the plan was actually written by Russia. We later found out that it had been delivered to Jared Kushner and Steve Wikoff in a secret meeting in Miami in October and they didn’t tell Rubio or Trump. (I suspect Witkoff and Kushner were high on their great Gaza peace deal and decided to run their own foreign policy. And Trump was busy redecorating so he didn’t mind.)
Bloomberg:
GOP Senator Mike Rounds went before the cameras and said:
Secretary of State Rubio did make a phone call to us this afternoon. I think he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives. It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan. It is a proposal that was received. And as an intermediary, we have made arrangements to share it. And we did not release it. It was leaked. It was not released by our members or our representatives.
He said they’d present it to the Ukrainians for some input which was awfully generous.
He walked that back later that night, making it clear that he had been out of the loop and somebody told him to get with the program:
Who was really pulling the strings?
This is apparently a JD operation to usurp Rubio. And JD’s man in the Pentagon, Army Sec. Driscoll is usurping Hegseth. (He’s participating in the talks.)
JD’s been on the phone with various players and Marco wasn’t informed.
The fight for the 2028 nomination has begun. We’ll be lucky if it doesn’t result in nuclear war.
Meanwhile. the orange freak is still ranting about the 2020 election and trying to cover his ass for being unable to end the war with one phone call like he promised.
Stay tuned. This crazy story is still unfolding. I hope it goes well but it will be a miracle.