November 24, 2025
DIANE FRANCIS
One can’t help but notice that the Trump regime’s preposterous 28-point non-peace “peace plan” for Ukraine and Russia has knocked Epstein, Venezuela, and even America’s affordability troubles off its front pages. But the document damages Trump: It appears to be a rogue document that proposes to bail out Vladimir Putin’s failed invasion, undermine Ukraine, Europe, and NATO, and pit isolationist and pro-Putin Vice President “Comrade” J.D. Vance into the role of de facto secretary of state, now held by his Presidential Marco Rubio. Fortunately, the plan is so amateurish, so compromised, and so transparently crafted by Russia and Trump’s business associates that it has jolted Europe awake, united Ukrainians, triggered a Republican mutiny, and confirmed that private dealmakers are driving Trump’s Russia policy without U.S. national security oversight. US Republican Senator Mike Rounds even said the document “looked more like it was written in Russian to begin with.”
The authors of this “peace” plan include Trump’s special envoy and real-estate associate Steve Witkoff, son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Kremlin sovereign-wealth manager Kirill Dmitriev. The three met in Miami in late October to draft a “peace blueprint.” None were authorized. None represented the United States in any formal capacity. It was a “side deal” done by pals: Dimitriev is friends with Kushner and serves as head of Russia’s National Wealth Fund, a piggybank worth $158.84 billion. The three met clandestinely at the Faena Hotel — owned by Len Blavatnik, a Russian oligarch who is now a US citizen and does business with Witkoff — and they essentially crafted a Kremlin wish list.
The meeting was allegedly hidden from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, from NATO, from European leaders, and from the Ukrainian government. It was also hidden from the U.S. national-security establishment. The secrecy was so extreme that when the plan leaked, senators had to scramble to find out who wrote it. Independent Senator Angus King said Rubio personally told senators that “this was not the administration’s plan.” The truth is that the administration had never seen it. Not at State. Not at Defense. Not at the National Security Council. The plan appeared in public as if dropped from the sky, with fingerprints that were unmistakably Russian. Then, after Putin endorsed it as a “basis for negotiation,” and so did Trump, who added it wasn’t his “final offer,” the gig was up.
Now Rubio plays “good cop” to Vance’s “bad cop” by convening and chairing a meeting in Geneva on November 24 with European and Ukrainian officials to discuss the plan and devise counterproposals. He quickly declared they were progressing without providing details and said, “I think we all recognize that part of getting an end to this war will require Ukraine to feel that it is safe and it is never going to be invaded or attacked again.” Meanwhile, Trump goaded the process on by stating that “Ukrainian leadership has expressed Zero gratitude to the U.S. [untrue] and Europe keeps buying Russian oil. [This is true, and, ironically, the biggest culprit is Trump’s only Euro pal, Victor Orban of Hungary.]”
Despite the “peace plan’s” avowed intention to bring about “peace”, the plan does the opposite and would dismantle Ukraine as a sovereign state, which would expose it and Europe to more invasions. Its authors proposed that Ukraine surrender territory, reduce its army, limit alliances, and grant Russia access to its critical minerals and ports. It also proposed the creation of a U.S.–Russia “economic cooperation pact” involving energy, natural resources, AI, data centers, and the extraction of Arctic rare earths. This is not peacekeeping; it is plunder and annexation of wealth without payment. To further sweeten the deal for Washington, the threesome also proposed that the United States be given $100 billion from the $350 billion in Russian frozen assets—money that does not belong to America and that European governments will never release without international legal authority. These proposals would provide Putin a pathway out of defeat and set Moscow up to make more invasions.
The plan is silent on the fact that Russia is the guilty party and invaded without provocation, caused $1/2 trillion in damage to Ukraine, killed mostly civilians, and stole thousands of children. Thus, the three authors of this “peace plan” did not feel that any penalties, returns, reparations, or concessions from Moscow were in order. By contrast, their proposals stipulate that the Ukrainians surrender their property and legal rights, shrink their army, and accept no outside military help in the future. Russia was let off scot free and not required to surrender anything or anyone.
President Zelensky has remained restrained and resolved. He spoke with Vice President Vance for nearly an hour on November 21 about a “lasting peace,” then publicly thanked Trump for his “desire to end the bloodshed.” Now he and his government meet with Europeans in Geneva, but he will not sign this 28-point capitulation “peace deal”, and the Rada will never ratify it. That same day, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich issued a blistering indictment of the “peace plan” on X, as did Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell. “Any ‘peace’ agreement between Ukraine and Russia which weakens Ukraine’s ability to defend itself is in fact a surrender agreement which guarantees that in the next few years Putin will overrun all of Ukraine,” wrote Gingrich. Many Senators and Congressional representatives spoke out strongly against the force-fed “peace plan” from both sides of the aisle.
Vance’s role in this fiasco has drawn particular scrutiny. He appears to be freelancing foreign policy to advance himself for the 2026 Republican nomination, positioning himself as Trump’s heir by outmaneuvering Rubio. His behaviour raises ethical, perhaps legal, issues: Multiple senators said there was “no coordination” with the State Department and that not even Rubio had seen the draft. Vance’s behavior—combined with Witkoff’s conflicts of interest and Kushner’s profiteering from his father-in-law’s diplomacy—has stoked concern inside the administration, on Capitol Hill, and within the CIA. The perception that U.S. foreign policy is being run through a Miami hotel suite owned by a Russian oligarch and involving a Russian sovereign-wealth fund director is not merely embarrassing. It is dangerous.
Fortunately, this has generated an unexpected upside. European leaders, long accustomed and happy to yield to U.S. leadership on Ukraine, suddenly realized they could no longer do so. Germany’s new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, summoned a meeting and declared immediately: “Ukraine can count on us.” European governments control the vast majority of Russia’s frozen
assets; they hold the legal keys, not Trump. And Europe has already begun acting like the senior partner. Almost all new military aid to Ukraine this year has come from Europe, not the U.S., because Trump’s administration has choked off transfers and restricted Ukrainian use of American weapons. When Trump’s defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, pulled back U.S. intelligence for 48 hours in early autumn, Europe stepped in with satellite coverage and analysis, signaling that NATO would not allow Trump to sabotage the Ukrainian war effort.
European and American military leaders also realize that Ukraine “has cards” because it is, in fact, the cheapest and most effective way to degrade and contain Russian militarism. The Wall Street Journal’s Holman Jenkins wrote: “Former Australian General Mick Ryan recently explained that Russia no longer has a battlefield strategy—only a messaging strategy. Its goal is to convince Europe and America that supporting Ukraine is futile. As he put it: `Why throw good money after bad?’ But this narrative is collapsing. Ukraine continues to hold firm.”
The facts are, the 28-point plan was dead on arrival, legally and politically speaking. Europe cannot release frozen Russian assets to a bilateral U.S.–Russia scheme crafted without Ukrainian or European consent. Belgium has been explicit: whoever takes those assets will face lawsuits from every direction. The “peace plan” has virtually no political support except for Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Slovakia’s Robert Fico, both Kremlin-aligned outliers whose countries get cheap oil from Russia.
However, Trump can use “peace talks” as political cover. His Thanksgiving deadline will come and go, and he will claim negotiations are “ongoing” to avoid imposing more effective sanctions on Russia. Rubio ebulliently declared on November 23 that the Geneva talks had already made the “most progress” since the war began. But nothing will stop Putin from escalating missile attacks on Ukrainian cities through Christmas, exploiting Europe’s holiday lull. He will continue to nip at the edges of NATO nations to stoke anxiety. But Europe will announce a mega weapons initiative in January, and Ukraine’s lines will hold. Morale will remain intact if Ukrainians see that Russia is losing—and that Europe is finally stepping up to the role the United States once played.
The plan is a “Hail Mary” pass by Putin because he is losing. On October 14, Trump said the Russian economy would collapse this year or early next year. In early November, a military post quoted a highly regarded Russian General Leonid Ivashov’s blistering attack against Putin’s war: “We have had no successes at the operational-tactical level and at the strategic level. We have suffered defeat in all directions. A strategic defeat will lead to the collapse of Russia.”
After nearly four years of war, it remains obvious that the only way to stop Putin is to fully support Ukraine’s military, impose crippling sanctions to stop his war machine, and punish all of Russia’s energy customers in Europe and elsewhere. Everything else is political theatre. The US carried the burden, but now it’s Europe’s turn. The Miami scheme is worrisome but has exposed duplicity at the highest level of the US government and a Trump-Vance pro-Putin agenda. It has also awakened Europe and exposed the Kremlin’s desperation. Russian dupes tried to redraw the geopolitical map, but only exposed the reality that Trump’s foreign policy is for sale, Russia is strategically spent, and that Europe, plus Ukraine, also has cards and needs more.