Trump says he's sending his envoys to see Putin and Ukrainians after
fine-tuning plan to end war
[November 26, 2025]
By AAMER MADHANI, ISOBEL KOSHIW and KONSTANTIN TOROPIN
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday his plan to end
the war in Ukraine has been “fine-tuned” and he’s sending envoy Steve
Witkoff to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Army Secretary
Dan Driscoll to meet with Ukrainian officials.
Trump suggested he could eventually meet with Putin and Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but not until further progress has been
made in negotiations. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday evening aboard
Air Force One, Trump said resolving the war was difficult, and described
what had been a 28-point plan as a work in progress. “That was not a
plan — it was a concept,” Trump said.
Trump’s plan for ending the nearly four-year war emerged last week. It
heavily favored Russia, prompting Zelenskyy to quickly engage with
American negotiators. European leaders, fearing for their own future
facing Russian aggression but apparently sidelined by Trump in drawing
up the proposal, scrambled to steer the negotiations toward
accommodating their concerns.
Trump said he believed Witkoff would be meeting with Putin next week in
Moscow, with his son-in-law Jared Kushner potentially joining the
meeting. “People are starting to realize it’s a good deal for both
parties,” Trump said.
The president played down the element of his plan that would require
Ukraine to cede territory to Russia, suggesting that Russian forces were
already likely to seize the land they're seeking.
“The way it’s going, if you look, it’s just moving in one direction,"
Trump said. "So eventually that’s land that over the next couple of
months might be gotten by Russia anyway.”
At the center of Trump’s plan is the call on Ukraine to concede the
entirety of its eastern Donbas region, even though a vast swath of that
land remains in Ukrainian control. Analysts at the independent Institute
for the Study of War have estimated it would take several years for the
Russian military to completely seize the territory, based on its current
rate of advances.
Trump downplays transcript of Witkoff talks with Russian counterpart
Trump made his comments after Driscoll held talks late Monday and
throughout Tuesday with Russian officials in Abu Dhabi, United Arab
Emirates, to discuss the emerging proposal.
“The talks are going well and we remain optimistic,” Lt. Col. Jeff
Tolbert, spokesman for the Army secretary, said in a statement. Witkoff,
a real estate developer turned diplomat, has been Trump’s chief
interlocutor with Putin, while Driscoll, who is close to Vance, has
stepped up his involvement in the administration’s peace push in recent
days.
As the talks were taking place, Russia launched a wave of overnight
attacks on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, with at least seven people killed in
strikes that hit city buildings and energy infrastructure. A Ukrainian
attack on southern Russia killed three people and damaged homes,
authorities said.
Trump spoke to reporters after Bloomberg News published a transcript of
an Oct. 14 call between Witkoff and Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yuri
Ushakov where Witkoff coached his counterpart on how Putin should handle
a call with Trump.
Trump downplayed Witkoff’s reported approach as “a very standard form of
negotiation.”
But U.S. Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican who has been critical of
Trump’s approach to Ukraine, said the transcript showed Witkoff favors
the Russians. “He cannot be trusted to lead these negotiations. Would a
Russian paid agent do less than he? He should be fired,” Bacon said on
social media.
Bloomberg said it reviewed a recording of the call, but did not say how
it obtained access to the recording. The Associated Press has not
independently verified the transcript.
Latest phase of the talks
French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday that peace efforts are
gathering momentum and “are clearly at a crucial juncture.”
He spoke after senior U.S. and Ukrainian officials met in Geneva on
Sunday and a virtual “coalition of the willing” meeting of Ukraine’s
European allies took place on Tuesday. U.S. Secretary of State Marco
Rubio took part in both gatherings.
“Negotiations are getting a new impetus. And we should seize this
momentum,” he said during the video conference meeting of countries, led
by France and the U.K., that could help police any ceasefire with
Russia.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said of the talks: “I do think we
are moving in a positive direction and indications today that in large
part the majority of the text, (Zelenskyy) is indicating, can be
accepted.”
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Residents watch their homes burn after a Russian drone hit a
multistory residential building in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Nov. 25,
2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Oleksandr Bevz, one of the Ukrainian delegates at the Geneva talks,
however, cautioned that it was “very premature to say that something
is agreed upon."
In an interview with The Associated Press in Kyiv late Tuesday, he
declined to discuss the specifics of any amendments to Trump's plan,
but said the U.S. was aware that the strength of security guarantees
for Ukraine would “define the sustainability of the deal” and was
“the part making this deal real and enforceable.”
Bevz earlier told the AP that the number of points in the proposed
settlement was reduced, but he denied reports that the 28-point U.S.
peace plan now consisted of 19 points.
”(The document) is going to continue to change. We can confirm that
it was reduced to take out points not relating to Ukraine, to
exclude duplicates and for editing purposes," Bevz said, adding that
some points relating solely to relations between Russia and the U.S.
were excluded.
Long road to peace
Zelenskyy said late Monday that “the list of necessary steps to end
the war can become workable." He said he planned to discuss
“sensitive” outstanding issues with Trump.
Rustem Umerov, a senior adviser to Zelenskyy, posted on X on Tuesday
that Zelenskyy hoped to finalize a deal with Trump “at the earliest
suitable date in November.”
Russian officials have been reserved in their comments on the peace
plan. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday that
Moscow is in touch with U.S. officials about peace efforts.
"We expect them to provide us with a version they consider an
interim one in terms of completing the phase of coordinating this
text with the Europeans and the Ukrainians,” Lavrov said.
European leaders have cautioned that the road to peace will be long.
'Glass rained down'
Russia fired 22 missiles of various types and more than 460 drones
at Ukraine overnight, Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram. The strikes
knocked out water, electricity and heat in parts of Kyiv. Images
showed a large fire spreading in a nine-story residential building
in Kyiv’s eastern Dniprovskyi district.
Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said 20 people were wounded in Kyiv. The
Russian Defense Ministry said it targeted military-industrial
facilities and energy assets. The strikes were a response to
Ukrainian attacks on civilian objects in Russia, the ministry said.
Liubov Petrivna, a 90-year-old resident of a damaged building in the
Dniprovskyi district, told the AP that “absolutely everything” in
her apartment was shattered by the strike and “glass rained down” on
her.
Petrivna said that she didn't believe in the peace plan now under
discussion.
“No one will ever do anything about it,” she said. Russian President
Vladimir Putin "won’t stop until he finishes us off.”
Large Ukrainian drone attack
The overnight Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s southern region of
Krasnodar was “one of the longest and most massive” and wounded six
people, Gov. Veniamin Kondratyev said.
Russian air defenses destroyed 249 Ukrainian drones overnight above
various Russian regions and the occupied Crimean Peninsula, the
Russian Defense Ministry said Tuesday.
Ukraine said that its drones and missiles struck an aviation repair
plant and a drone production facility, as well as an oil refinery
and an oil terminal.
It was the fourth-largest Ukrainian drone attack on Russia since the
start of the war on Feb. 24, 2022, according to an AP tally.
___
Isobel Koshiw reported from Kyiv, Ukraine. John Leicester in Paris,
Stephen McGrath in Leamington Spa, England, Chris Megerian in
Washington and Josh Boak in West Palm Beach, Florida, contributed to
this report.
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