US State Secy Rubio sees Ukraine deadline easing after 'productive' talks

By Hugo Miller, Alberto Nardelli and Daryna Krasnolutska

  President Donald Trump’s proposed Nov. 27 deadline to secure Ukraine’s support for a US-backed peace plan isn’t set in stone and could drift into the following week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, suggesting that plenty of work remains. 

Rubio’s note of caution followed US-Ukrainian talks Sunday in Geneva that both sides described as making progress toward a deal. Any agreement would require signoff by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as well as Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

 

“It is probably the most productive day we have had on this issue, maybe in the entirety of our engagement, but certainly in a very long time,” Rubio told reporters at the US diplomatic mission in Geneva. “But work remains, and because this continues to be a working process, I don’t want to declare victory or finality here.”

 

The two sides drafted “an updated and refined peace framework” and “agreed to continue intensive work on joint proposals in the coming days,” according to a joint statement from the White House. Neither Rubio nor the White House offered specifics on any progress made in the talks. Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, joined Rubio at an earlier briefing in Geneva but wasn’t present for Rubio’s afternoon comments to reporters.

 

Zelenskyy also took a cautious stance in a video posted on X, saying “it’s important to ensure that the steps to end the war are effective, and that everything is doable.”

 

“Diplomacy has been reinvigorated and that’s good,” he said. “We have our state position, we have our Ukrainian dignity and we must move in a way that strengthens it, not undermines it.”

 

Trump heightened US pressure for a deal earlier Sunday, accusing Ukraine’s leadership of showing in a social post “ZERO GRATITUDE FOR OUR EFFORTS” to help Ukraine defend against a full-scale Russian invasion now well into its fourth year.

 

US officials are pushing Ukraine to accept the 28-point proposal to end Russia’s war as a basis for negotiations and to issue a statement saying so, according to two people familiar with the matter. 

 

Zelenskyy, faced with a blueprint backed by the US and Russia, replied on X earlier that Ukraine “is grateful to the United States,” including “personally to President Trump” for US assistance.

 

While Trump suggested last week that he wanted a deal by Thursday, Rubio cited a more flexible timeline to potentially allow for more talks.

 

“You know, whether it’s Thursday, whether it’s Friday, whether it’s Wednesday, whether it’s Monday of the following week, we want it to be soon,” he said. 

 

Rubio led a US delegation including Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and Special Envoy Steven Witkoff that met with Ukrainian counterparts.

 

Yermak, during an earlier break in the Geneva talks, expressed gratitude to Trump and his team for “their commitment to bring this peace.”

 

“We have very good progress and we are moving forward to the just and lasting peace,” he told reporters. 

 

Ukrainian officials and European national security advisers met earlier Sunday. The US is currently objecting to meeting the Ukrainians and Europeans together, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

 

The US asked Ukraine to attest that it provided input into the proposals after it became clear that Moscow contributed heavily to the plan, one of the people said.

 

“Our current proposals while still not finalized, include many Ukrainian priorities,” Rustem Umerov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said on the social media platform X.

 

Under the terms proposed by the US, Ukraine would have to withdraw troops from parts of the eastern Donbas region that Russia has failed to fully occupy during its full-scale invasion. The area would become a neutral, demilitarized buffer zone internationally recognized as Russian.

 

Moscow would also obtain de facto recognition over Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk. Most of the remainder of the frontline, including in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, would be effectively frozen.

 

Ukraine and its European allies have drafted a counter-proposal rejecting several of those terms, Bloomberg reported earlier. Many other clauses proposed by the US, including the return of all hostages, including children, would be acceptable.