Senators Claim Rubio Called Ukrainian Peace Plan a ‘Leaked’ Russian ‘Wish List’
“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.”
During a call with a bipartisan group of senators attending the Halifax International Security Forum on Saturday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly described the controversial 28-point Ukrainian peace plan as a “leaked” Russian “wish list.”
According to Politico, Rubio “assured them the document does not represent the Trump administration’s position.” He told the senators that “the Americans did not instigate the proposal.”
“He made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” Republican Sen. Mike Rounds (SD) told Politico. “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.”
Despite media reports that President Donald Trump threatened to suspend or scale back intelligence-sharing or military assistance if Ukraine rejected the terms, lawmakers on the call said Rubio told them he was “unaware” of any such plans.
“He told me … he was not aware of that threat being made,” Rounds added. “The intent was to take what had now been publicly discussed in news reports and to allow the Ukrainians the opportunity to respond back to it.”
Politico reported that Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (NH), who participated in the call, believes the plan “included elements Ukraine and U.S. allies would never accept, including restrictions on NATO adding new members and the size of Ukraine’s military.”
Shaheen said, “There is so much in that plan that is totally unacceptable if we’re going to have a real negotiation that is going to actually produce a peace deal for Ukraine and Russia.”
Yet, the Associated Press reported that a state department spokesperson later denied the senators’ accounts of the call.
And, in a Saturday night post on X, Rubio said the plan was indeed “authored by the U.S.”
The peace proposal was authored by the U.S.
It is offered as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations
It is based on input from the Russian side. But it is also based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine. https://t.co/JWbAQ04kcw
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) November 23, 2025
The call came as Rubio was en route to Geneva, where he, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, and Trump envoy Steve Witkoff are scheduled to meet with Ukrainian advisers on Sunday.
The plan has drawn broad criticism for being tilted in Russia’s favor. The terms are viewed as favoring Russia because, in reality, they do favor Russia.
Reports that Trump gave Ukraine a Thanksgiving deadline to accept the plan or risk losing U.S. support are equally disturbing.
Perhaps that’s why, when Trump was asked at the White House on Saturday whether the terms were nonnegotiable, he replied that the plan was not final. He said, “No, not my final. We’d like to get to peace. It should’ve happened a long time ago.”
The Wall Street Journal published a point-by-point analysis of the proposal on Saturday, which is worth a look. The plan would require:
Kyiv [to] cede territory to Russia, block its ambitions to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and cap the size of its military amid other major economic and political concessions to Moscow.
Ukraine would receive funds for reconstruction and assurances from the U.S. that it would discuss with allies providing military assistance and other steps if Russia broke the agreement and attacked again. Those commitments would fall short of a European-led “reassurance force” stationed within the country to deter further Russian attacks.
The Journal reported that the plan was “drafted in secret by Ukraine envoy Steve Witkoff in consultation with Kremlin confidant Kirill Dmitriev,” which might explain why it appears so one-sided.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s engagement in this latest effort to “end the war” is widely seen as a strategic maneuver rather than a genuine pursuit of peace. By appearing open to negotiations, he buys valuable time to regroup his forces, repair his military infrastructure, and reposition troops for his next deadly assault on Ukraine.
This tactic aligns with a longstanding pattern in which the Kremlin uses supposed diplomacy to ease pressure, stall international support for Ukraine, and prepare for future offensives. Far from signaling a real commitment to peace, Putin’s involvement suggests an attempt to reset the battlefield on his own terms and pave the way for the next phase of hostilities.
What is required now is a full-scale pressure campaign against Russia. The U.S. and its European allies must intensify sanctions on the Kremlin and provide Ukraine with the advanced weaponry necessary to bring Putin to the negotiating table in earnest.
We will soon see whether the talks currently underway in Geneva lead to any meaningful changes. As it stands, the proposed deal offers little that is genuinely constructive for Ukraine. In its current form, it risks undermining Kyiv’s position rather than strengthening it and falls far short of what is needed to secure a just and lasting peace.
According to Axios‘ Barak Ravid, the first to report on the plan last week, sources familiar with the negotiations in Geneva inform him that U.S. and Ukrainian officials “have been making progress toward a possible agreement on Washington’s proposed peace plan.”
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
How far are these proposed terms from those that Russia would accept?
Ukraine doesn’t have the upper hand here.
The United States doesn’t need an endless war.
Exactly. Russia is willing to keep fighting.
Why should we keep throwing hundreds of billions of dollars at a pointless forever war?
The EU doesn’t believe their propaganda BS of OMG RUSSIA IS THREAT TO EUROPE. If they did, they would stop buying a $trillion of Russian oil and gas a year.
The EU won’t fund their precious war themselves, won’t send their own troops to fight, and won’t even stop buying Russian energy.
So why should the US keep funding this farce?
Russia took territory from Ukraine that it can’t take back without a LARGE number of US troops to do it for them, and that’s not going to happen.
It’s long past time we ended this joke. The EU can fund and fight their stupid forever war themselves.
I’m sure Russia would be willing to cease hostilities if Ukraine would kindly surrender Odessa and landlock the country. Russia wants it all, and they’ll take it mile by mile, year by year. Once the ink is dry, they’ll find another pretext to move to the north and west. But hey, as long as no one opposes them we’ll have “peace”, right? Ukraine gave up their nukes on a “trust us, bro” assurance from the US, UK and France. They were stupid and this is the result.
Russia knew what it was doing. Support Green nonsense, let Europe destroy it’s ability to generate it’s own power and then become dependent on Russia for clean natural gas. Attack Ukraine and threaten to freeze Europe to death. Ukraine has no chance in a protracted war and can not defeat Russia. The US should not be involved in a European war, let them fight and pay for it. What happened to the left’s “America is not the worlds policeman” wails of anguish? Money laundering in Ukraine to support Dems and progressives using NGO’s that’s what happened.
I can’t believe that a bunch of Globalist Senators would trash Trump over a supposedly leaked peace plan for Ukraine. Sarcasm alert.
The reality is the establishment Globalist of both parties want forever war in Ukraine. They believe that with enough death and destruction in Ukraine and Russia they can destabilize Russia and amass vast amounts of wealth and power.
Eastasia has always been at war with Eurasia or something scary, like Goldstein.
Screw Airship One, let Oceanans fight themselves.
I saw a clip of Senator Warner speaking on this topic today.
One of his big objections is that the Peace Plan would prevent Ukraine from ever being a part of NATO. Part of the reunification of Germany and the end of the Cold War was a US promise not to expand NATO eastward.
Warner and his fellow Globalists in DC and Europe desperately want the US involved in another European war. Warner and his likeminded colleagues are stupid, evil and demented.
I have to confess I am one of the people who have been proven 100% wrong about Ukraine.
I did not think Ukraine had any chance the day Russia invaded and was furious at Biden for not giving Ukraine the word no concerning NATO membership.
Ukraine has proven it can and is winning, superior determination by a well trained Ukrainian army fighting for their nation has defeated conscripts with no reason to fight.
When you remember how many T55 tanks, and MIG 29 jets Ukraine has in service you will be cured of the idea Ukraine is surviving due to technology.
I overestimated Russian technology, the motivation of her fighting men, and the amount of actual modernization it made, and I also assumed that they continued to have the same combined arms warfare it had in the cold war and had integrated new technology like drones.
I was wrong about everything, however some of the best informed people in the country also dramatically overestimated the Russian military.
It is time for Russia to give up imperial aspirations and join the west in improving her economy and providing a better lifestyle for her people and for a start try dragging her people out of the third world poverty the war introduced.
Tsarist Russia didn’t care about her manpower and neither did Soviet Russia (continuity from Tsarist officers all being drafted into the Red Army to win the civil war has legacies).
If Vladimir Putin isn’t insane he will stop sacrificing his men in suicide attacks before he wakes up like Nicholas II, or is killed by a grieving father who still has his old service pistol.
If Russia gives up territorial ambition it will find the west is more than willing to drag her peoples quality of life up. Trump has made it clear if the war ends and Russia realigns to the United States the United States will protect it from any European country that won’t let bygones be bygones.
Even Hungary a nation once occupied by Russia is willing to look to the future if Russia puts down her weapons.
What exactly is the Ukraine winning?
Nothing. Refusing to admit Ukraine into NATO is very prudent as an attack on them would immediately involve the US in a land war in Europe vs Russia which is stupid. Danny, you have outdone yourself with idiocy on this one.
Ukraine won her survival against reunification.
Off the top of my head Russian casualties have to be counted in the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS.
Russia has lost scores of capable modern tanks
Russia has lost scores of state of the art military helicopters
Russia’s actual elite units have suffered attrition that has reduced them to conscripts
The only remaining effective arm of he Russian military is air power which it can’t leverage over Ukraine due to lack of accurate intel and inferior missiles to what the west uses (so it can’t do the kind of targeting the USAF can even though it is still an effective and powerful force)
Russian casualty rates to Ukrainian ones mean Russia will lose if nothing changes.
The Ukrainian goal was just survive.
Now taking Crimea (so taking a bite out of Russia) is very much on the table.
A T 54 is not state of the art armor. The AK 47 is not an advanced rifle today. The MIG 29 is multiple generations behind modern. The S300 was exceptional in the 20th century but is little more than psychological warfare against a modern air force.
Ukraine won her survival against an attempt at annexation by Russia despite being equipped with technology that would be considered obsolete decades ago.
The problem for any peace ‘deal’ is the framing the neocon/globalist talking heads use. They seem to uniformly begin with ‘we can’t reward Russia’. That’s a recipe for a failed attempt to reach any agreement. Anyone who believes Russia is gonna willingly agree to return to the antebellum conditions that existed prior to Feb ’22 is a completely unserious at best and hopelessly naive at worst.
Ukraine is not ‘winning’ in any sense. Certainly not in terms of preventing Russia from expanding the amount of captured territory. They have several major corruption scandals. They’ve gone full totalitarian seizing control of TV/Radio stations, attesting Clergy, shuttering houses of worship, jailing opposition leaders, banning opposing politicians, refusing to hold new elections…. Not exactly the actions expected of those the media, neocons and globalist narrative breathlessly proclaim to be committed to democracy and democratic values…unless the comparison was to blue State/City d/prog politicians during Covid Mania.
It’s hard to take Marco Rubio serious after he appeared in that stupid “documentary” about aliens.