The US and Ukraine have drafted a new 19-point peace deal but left the most politically sensitive elements to be decided by the countries’ presidents, according to Ukraine’s first deputy foreign minister Sergiy Kyslytsya.
Washington had previously put Kyiv under pressure to agree a 28-point proposal that had been developed by US and Russian officials and crossed several long-standing Ukrainian red lines.
Kyslytsya, who was in the room as part of the Ukrainian delegation for high-stakes talks in Geneva, told the Financial Times the meeting was an “intense” but “productive” effort that resulted in a thoroughly revised draft document that left both sides feeling “positive”.
After hours of painstaking talks that nearly fell apart before they started, the US and Ukrainian teams reached agreements on several issues but “placed in brackets” the most contentious points — including territorial issues and relations between Nato, Russia and the US — for presidents Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy to decide.
The Ukrainians said they “were not mandated” to make decisions on territory — particularly ceding land as the original draft plan suggested — which under their country’s constitution would require a national referendum.
The new draft, Kyslytsya said, bore little resemblance to the earlier leaked version of the peace proposal that had caused uproar in Kyiv. “Very few things are left from the original version,” he said.
“We developed a solid body of convergence, and a few things we can compromise on,” he said. “The rest will need leadership decisions.”
Each side will take the latest working drafts back to Washington and Kyiv to brief the presidents. The Trump administration was then expected to approach Moscow to seek to advance the talks, he said.
Draft copies of the plan given to the heads of the US and Ukrainian delegations were the only texts to leave the room. Kyslytsya said all other copies were taken back at the conclusion of the meeting.
The discussions were led on the Ukrainian side by Zelenskyy’s powerful chief of staff Andriy Yermak and National Security and Defense Council secretary Rustem Umerov, with Kyslytsya and a band of military officers and intelligence officials playing a supporting role on Kyiv’s side.
The American delegation included secretary of state Marco Rubio, Army secretary Dan Driscoll, Trump’s special envoy for Russia Steve Witkoff, and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, whose presence initially surprised Ukrainian officials.
Kyslytsya said the Americans were attentive, eager to hear the Ukrainians’ point of view and open to suggestions. “Almost everything we suggested was taken on board,” he said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday said “everybody inside feels optimistic about what happened and transpired yesterday in Geneva . . . ultimately, the vast majority of these points have been agreed upon.”
While the talks ended on a positive note, they almost failed to begin, according to Kyslytsya, describing the mood in Geneva Sunday morning as “very tense”.
The Americans had arrived frustrated by leaks to the media in the days leading up to the meeting and the public debate around origins of the first draft proposal.
“The first hours were totally . . . ” he said, pausing for several seconds, “hanging by a hair.”
It took nearly two hours of talks between Yermak and the US delegation to turn down the temperature and get back on track. “Eventually we were able to go to the US mission and begin real conversations,” Kyslytsya said.
A lengthy morning session with the Americans allowed the Ukrainians to air their concerns and requests. That was followed by a short break and a detailed point-by-point review of the proposed peace plan, he said.
Kyslytsya said the US side appeared willing to remove a proposal to introduce a 600,000 cap on Ukraine’s army. He said the US negotiators had listened carefully to the Ukrainian arguments, and agreed to take the points into account.
“They agreed the Ukrainian army number in the leaked version [of the peace plan draft] — whoever authored it — was no longer on the table,” he said. “The military will continue to discuss the arrangements.”
A proposal for a blanket amnesty for potential war crimes in the original draft was reworked in a way that addresses “the grievances of those who suffered in the war”, he said.
A separate session later in the day brought in European allies, including representatives from the UK, France, Germany, Italy and EU institutions. Prior to the US talks, Ukraine had held private discussions with European national security advisers to co-ordinate positions and identify shared priorities, Kyslytsya said.
He repeatedly praised the “constructive engagement” of the US team, singling out Rubio, Driscoll and Kushner. “There was no point where they said: ‘We won’t discuss it’. We went through all points carefully.”
It remains unclear whether Trump will want Zelenskyy to approve the document with a signature, but Leavitt said “there are no plans at this moment” for a meeting between the two leaders.
The US president said his Ukrainian counterpart should back a draft plan by Thanksgiving on Thursday.
Washington must decide how and when to present the draft peace deal to Russia. The Kremlin on Monday said it had not seen or been briefed on the US-Ukrainian draft.
Kyslytsya said: “It’s on the Russians to show if they are genuinely interested in peace or will find a thousand reasons not to engage.”
Ukraine, for its part, has expressed willingness to continue working towards a fair end to the war and to travel “wherever” to continue the process.
He also emphasised the broader significance of the meeting. “The fundamental achievement in Geneva is that we managed to preserve a workable partnership and dialogue with the Americans,” he said.
“Despite the media hype and social media frenzy, both sides showed that the partnership is strong and capable of producing a viable document for the leaders.”
Still, Kyslytsya remained cautious. “We were not sitting in the Netflix headquarters writing scripts that will be Oscar-nominated,” he said. “We should not be driven by excitement or hype, but by responsibility and the complexity of the issues.”
Additional reporting by Steff Chávez in Mexico City