Kremlin Rebuffs EU Plan, Clouding Trump's Bid to Fast-Track Ukraine Peace

The Kremlin’s rejection of Europe’s counter-proposal to the U.S. peace plan for Ukraine is emerging as a direct setback to President Donald Trump’s effort to push the war toward a rapid negotiated end, according to reporting from Reuters.

Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov told Moscow reporters that the European text “is completely unconstructive” and “does not work for us,” language carried in the Reuters dispatch.

That response signals Moscow will not work off any framework except the original U.S. 28-point document the Trump administration unveiled last week, which Reuters noted had already alarmed European governments and Ukraine over concessions they feared tilted toward Russian demands on NATO, territory, and sequencing.

Over the weekend in Geneva, U.S. and Ukrainian officials attempted to amend the original American draft, with the Washington Post reporting that Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the document as “a living, breathing” plan after long negotiations with Kyiv’s team.

Associated Press reporting from Geneva said the U.S. and Ukraine made progress adjusting the draft to address Ukrainian concerns without discarding the framework entirely. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the "main problem" in negotiations is legal recognition of Russian sovereignty over lands seized in eastern Ukraine -- territory he characterized as "stolen."

Europe, meanwhile, produced its own rewritten proposal that shifted key language on NATO and territorial arrangements, a version Reuters reported Moscow immediately rejected on Monday.

This divergence leaves Trump confronting a splintered Western front at the very moment he is attempting to accelerate diplomacy and force the war onto a negotiation track built around the U.S. plan.

Putin said late last week that the American proposal could form the basis for a settlement if Kyiv accepts it, a stance Reuters reported was paired with a warning that Russian forces would advance further if Ukraine refuses.

Ushakov said many provisions in the U.S. plan were acceptable to Moscow, Reuters added, making the American text — and not the European rewrite — the only document Russia appears willing to discuss.

That dynamic places pressure on Trump to move Ukraine and Europe into alignment behind Washington’s framework so he can present Moscow with a unified position capable of delivering the fast-moving peace push he has promised.