The Trump administration has told Ukrainian and European officials there is little room to negotiate on its plan to end Russia’s war, as the US heaps pressure on Volodymyr Zelenskyy to sign a deal drawn up with Moscow’s help by Thursday.
US army secretary Daniel Driscoll told European ambassadors and western officials at a volatile meeting in Kyiv late on Friday that he was “optimistic that now is the time for peace” — but warned that Washington would show little flexibility.
“We are not negotiating details,” he said, according to a senior European official in the meeting at the Kyiv residence of US Chargé d’Affaires, Julie Davis. One senior European official described the tone of the meeting as “nauseating”.
News of the Kyiv discussion, coupled with President Donald Trump’s comments on Friday that Ukraine would “have to like” Washington’s deal, prompted late-night discussions among European leaders gathered for the G20 meeting in Johannesburg about how to intervene.
“It is time for the Trump whisperers to start shouting,” said one official briefed on the discussions.
On Saturday, UK prime minister Keir Starmer said that “Ukraine’s friends and partners will meet in the margins of the G20 summit to discuss how we can secure a full ceasefire and create the space for meaningful peace negotiations.”
“We will discuss the current proposal on the table, and in support of President Trump’s push for peace, look at how we can strengthen this plan for the next phase of negotiations,” Starmer added.
The meeting in the ornate mansion in Kyiv’s historic Podil district came a day after the US’s 28-point plan surfaced. The discussion went sideways quickly, according to European officials present.
Davis told the group gathering in the mansion that “as much as we can support Ukraine continuing the war, there are limits”, said one ambassador present.
“There are strong indications that Russia has a strong industrial base and it is a matter of time until Ukraine has to cut a deal,” she said, according to the ambassador.
Driscoll showed up late and laced his comments with profanities, according to people present. “We need to get this shit done,” he said.
“The US Armed Forces love Ukraine and stand behind Ukraine, but it is the honest US military assessment that Ukraine is in a very bad position and now is the best time for peace,” Driscoll continued.
He added that “security guarantees are part of this” US deal and would be discussed with European and Ukrainian leaders in the coming days.
The senior European official at the meeting said Davis and Driscoll insisted that president Zelenskyy sign the deal before the American Thanksgiving Day holiday, on Thursday.
“We have a narrow window for peace — president Trump wants peace now,” Driscoll said, according to a readout provided to the Financial Times by a senior western official present. “The more cooks in the kitchen, the harder it is to handle.”
In a television address earlier on Friday, Zelenskyy warned the nation that it risked having to choose between the loss of US support or the loss of its dignity in a harsh peace with Russia.
The Ukrainian leader’s comments came a day after Driscoll presented him with the 28-point plan that crossed several of Kyiv’s red lines and were depicted by European allies as a “capitulation” to Moscow.
“Now Ukraine may find itself facing a very difficult choice — either loss of dignity, or the risk of losing a key partner,” Zelenskyy said. The country faced “one of the most difficult moments in our history”.
Trump responded to Zelenskyy’s comments in the Oval Office on Friday, saying the Ukrainian president would “have to like” the US plan. “At some point, he’s going to have to accept something.”
The president also referred to his confrontation with Zelenskyy in the White House in February, when vice-president JD Vance accused the Ukrainian leader of ingratitude.
“You remember not so long ago, right in the Oval Office, I said ‘you don’t have the cards’,” Trump said. “I thought he should have made a deal a year ago, two years ago.”
EU ambassadors and officials at the Kyiv residence meeting described the messages from the US as “shocking”.
A US official in the room said the meeting had been “positive, straightforward and respectful”.
“There was a good exchange, secretary Driscoll answered as many questions as time allowed as completely as possible,” the US official said. A spokesperson for the US embassy did not respond to a request for comment.
One western official said the diplomats at the meeting believed the US was using Zelenskyy’s political weakness amid a domestic corruption scandal to try to push a deal on Ukraine quickly.
Some EU ambassadors in the meeting framed the US proposal as a strategic victory for Russia. Davis countered that the loss of 1mn soldiers — the US estimate for how many Russians have been killed since Vladimir Putin launched the full-scale invasion in 2022 — did not constitute a win.
As the meeting came to a close, the EU ambassadors argued that instead of cutting a deal now, more pressure on Russia was needed. The Americans said what was on offer was the best Ukraine could expect.
“It turns out this is even worse than we thought,” said another senior European official briefed on the meeting.
Reports of the Kyiv meeting prompted hastily arranged bilateral talks between European leaders gathered in Johannesburg for a G20 summit.
Meetings that went on into the night included Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, and focused on finding a way to convince Trump to slow down his demand for Ukraine to accept the proposal.
The proposed peace plan also drew criticism from some Republican leaders.
Senator Mitch McConnell said that Putin had “spent the entire year trying to play president Trump for a fool”, adding that “rewarding Russian butchery would be disastrous to America’s interests”.
Additional reporting by Lauren Fedor in Washington
