Politico has learned about the U.S. condition for providing security guarantees to Ukraine

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told European allies that Washington wants to conclude a peace agreement before he agrees to any security guarantees for Ukraine.

This was reported to Politico by a European diplomat and another source familiar with the course of the negotiations.

According to them, this condition underscores the importance of the peace plan proposed by the United States. Politico’s sources said that during a phone call with European partners, Rubio stated that U.S. President Donald Trump would later hold talks on long-term security guarantees for Kyiv that would “provide a sense of security.”

According to another European diplomat, Rubio mentioned security guarantees at the talks in Geneva on November 23, but did not dwell on the topic in detail and did not repeat this proposal during a subsequent phone call with representatives of the UK and France.

The source told Politico that the Secretary of State also mentioned several other issues that need to be addressed after the deal is concluded, and Europeans took this to refer to Ukraine’s “territorial integrity” and frozen Russian assets.

The initial 28-point U.S. peace plan provided, among other things, for Ukraine to receive reliable security guarantees. After the talks in Geneva, this document was reduced to 22 points, Trump said. The plan has not been published officially anywhere.

Bloomberg reported that the provision on unfreezing Russian assets was removed from the initiative. According to the agency, the points removed from the original version will be set out in separate documents and considered in the course of subsequent negotiations. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry explained that, as understood by Kyiv, the issues within the peace plan relating to the EU and NATO will be moved into a separate negotiation track.

Despite statements by Kyiv and Washington about significant progress in the settlement process, CNN reports that the parties still have serious disagreements over three key points of the plan: transferring territories in Donbas under Russian control, limiting the size of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to 600,000 personnel, and a constitutional renunciation by the country of joining NATO.

Trump and Rubio named November 27 as the expected deadline for Kyiv to accept the terms of the peace plan. The U.S. president said that Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky must either agree to the proposal or continue to “fight with all his little remaining strength.”

After the talks in Geneva, a possible visit by the Ukrainian president to the United States to discuss with Trump the most sensitive aspects of the peace plan was discussed, CBS News and Reuters reported. National Security and Defense Council Secretary Rustem Umerov said that Ukraine and the United States had reached an understanding on key points and that Kyiv was now expecting to arrange Zelensky’s visit to the U.S. “at the earliest possible date in November in order to complete the final stages and reach an agreement with President Trump.”

Zelensky himself named as a condition for a meeting with the U.S. president the presence of European allies. Trump, for his part, said he expects to meet with Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin in the near future, but only when “the agreement to end this war is FINAL or in its final stage.” He instructed his special envoy Steve Witkoff to travel to Russia for talks with the Russian president, and U.S. Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll to maintain contact with Kyiv.

The Kremlin confirmed that they expect Witkoff’s visit next week. Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow had received a draft version of the U.S. peace plan, which was “drawn up” on the basis of understandings reached following the summit in Anchorage. Russia has not received the updated plan, he added.