The New York Times reports on the reaction to the big sell-out:
Leaders of some of the world’s most powerful countries pushed back on demands that Ukraine cede territory and limit the size of its army included in President Trump’s latest proposal to end the war with Russia. But they said they believed the plan provided a basis for further negotiations, according to a joint statement released after they met in Johannesburg on Saturday.
The proposal, a 28-point plan, calls for Ukrainian concessions already largely rejected by the country’s president and allies. Mr. Trump has given President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine until next week to agree to the plan, backing him into a seemingly lose-lose scenario as he faces the risk of losing crucial American support if he does not accept it.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s special envoy, will head to Geneva on Sunday, where they are expected to meet senior Ukrainian officials to discuss Kyiv’s response to the American proposal, a U.S. official said Saturday.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s allies in Europe and across the globe now face increased pressure to show they can get Ukraine the economic and military support it needs to continue battling Russia without U.S. support.
Mr. Trump’s plan “includes important elements that will be essential for a just and lasting peace,” said the statement, adopted by the leaders of 11 nations — including Germany, France, Britain, Japan and Canada — and the European Union.
President Emmanuel Macron of France said on Saturday that while he commended America’s efforts to strike a peace deal, “What is at stake is Ukrainian sovereignty and European security.”
He said European countries would work with the Ukrainians over the next two days to create a plan for the way forward.
Thomas “suck on this” Friedman gives it the “Neville Chamberlain Prize”
Anne Applebaum writes (gift link):
The 28-point peace plan that the United States and Russia want to impose on Ukraine and Europe is misnamed. It is not a peace plan. It is a proposal that weakens Ukraine and divides America from Europe, preparing the way for a larger war in the future. In the meantime, it benefits unnamed Russian and American investors, at the expense of everyone else.
The plan was negotiated by Steve Witkoff, a real-estate developer with no historical, geographical, or cultural knowledge of Russia or Ukraine, and Kirill Dmitriev, who heads Russia’s sovereign-wealth fund and spends most of his time making business deals. The revelation of their plan this week shocked European leaders, who are now paying almost all of the military costs of the war, as well as the Ukrainians, who were not sure whether to take this latest plan seriously until they were told to agree to it by Thanksgiving or lose all further U.S. support. Even if the plan falls apart, this arrogant and confusing ultimatum, coming only days after the State Department authorized the sale of anti-missile technology to Ukraine, will do permanent damage to America’s reputation as a reliable ally, not only in Europe but around the world.
The central points of the plan reflect long-standing Russian demands. The United States would recognize Russian rule over Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk—all of which are part of Ukraine. Russia would, in practice, be allowed to keep territory it has conquered in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. In all of these occupation zones, Russian forces have carried out arrests, torture, and mass repression of Ukrainian citizens, and because Russia would not be held accountable for war crimes, they could continue to do so with impunity. Ukraine would withdraw from the part of Donetsk that it still controls—a heavily reinforced and mined territory whose loss would open up central Ukraine to a future attack.
Not only would this plan cede territory, people, and assets to Russia; it also seems deliberately designed to weaken Ukraine, politically and militarily, so that Russia would find it easier to invade again a year from now, or 10 years from now. According to a version of the text that appeared in the Financial Times yesterday, the plan does state that “Ukraine’s sovereignty would be confirmed.” But it then imposes severe restrictions on Ukrainian sovereignty: Ukraine must “enshrine in its constitution” a promise to never join NATO. Ukraine must shrink the size of its armed forces to 600,000, down from 900,000. Ukraine may not host foreign troops on its soil. Ukraine must hold new elections within 100 days, a demand not made of Russia, a dictatorship that has not held free elections for more than two decades.
In return, the plan states that Ukraine “would receive security guarantees.” But it does not describe what those guarantees would be, and there is no reason to believe that President Donald Trump would ever abide by them. Russia would also “enshrine in law its policy of non-aggression towards Europe and Ukraine,” a bizarre and meaningless statement, given that Russia currently has a policy of permanent aggression not only toward Ukraine but also toward Europe and has, anyway, repeatedly violated promises before. The United States would lift sanctions on Russia, losing any existing leverage over President Vladimir Putin; invite Russia to rejoin the G8; and reintegrate Russia into the world economy. Awkward wording, evident throughout the document, suggests that at least some of it was originally written in Russian.
You can’t make this stuff up.
Here’s a tired Trump barely defending the plan:
Update — WTF?
U.S. lawmakers attempted Saturday to reverse days of confusion around a leaked peace plan for Ukraine, saying Secretary of State Marco Rubio assured them the document does not represent the Trump administration’s position.
Rubio called the bipartisan delegation to the Halifax International Security Forum on Saturday afternoon, they said, while en route to Geneva for talks with Ukrainian officials. He described the plan as a Russian proposal, they said, and not a U.S. initiative.
“He made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.). “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.”’
Their comments, at a Halifax press conference, amounted to a massive U-turn for an episode that has dominated the news this week and fueled a mad diplomatic scramble. The release of the plan has prompted questions in Kyiv, European capitals and Washington about whether the U.S. was backing a Kremlin-friendly plan.
Rubio told lawmakers that he was unaware of any plans by President Donald Trump to cut off intelligence sharing or military assistance if Ukraine rejected the terms.
Update II-
