Axios revealed the real time and route of transferring Trump’s plan to Zelensky

According to RCO News Agency, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, contrary to what he claimed, listened to the words of Steve Wittkoff and Jared Kushner, the advisors of the US President, who were reading line by line the 28-point plan to end the war in Ukraine, a week ago.

The existence of this plan was reported two days later on Axios website. By Friday, Zelensky was warning Ukrainians that Trump’s plan — and the pressure he faced to sign it — had plunged Ukraine into one of the most difficult times of its life.

Zelensky’s participation by phone in last weekend’s meeting between his national security adviser, Rostam Amrov, and Trump’s team was previously unreported, providing more clarity on when he entered the talks. The process that led to that dramatic meeting and the 28-point plan began about a month ago on a flight to Miami.

This Axios account is based on interviews with six American officials, two Ukrainian officials and one other knowledgeable source, most of whom were directly involved in negotiations related to the plan.

The Russian representative, who also heads Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, told Axios in a Nov. 17 interview that they had worked to put into writing the understandings reached at the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska.

The goal, Kirill Dmitriev said, was to create a framework that “basically says: how can we ultimately bring sustainable security to Europe, not just Ukraine.”

The result of the meetings with Dmitriev was an initial draft that became the 28-point plan of the United States. In an interview with Axios, Dmitriev did not mention the upcoming US peace plan, but said he was optimistic about the path of the talks: “We feel that Russia’s position is really being heard.”

At the time, Witkoff and Kushner had asked Trump for permission. “Witkoff and Kushner would not have engaged in negotiations with the Russians and Ukrainians on a new plan without a green light from Trump,” a US official said.

The official added that Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, “received the necessary information at every step of the way.” “JD Vance”, the vice president of the United States, was also in the process.

A senior U.S. government official said Vance’s idea was to use Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and his Yale law classmate to present the 28-point plan to Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Witkoff and Kushner met with Umarov, Zelensky’s adviser, at Witkoff’s home in Miami over the course of two days. Also present at the meeting was a senior Qatari official who has good relations with U.S. envoys Amerov and Vladimir Putin. Wittkoff and Kushner briefed Amrov on the plan and included some of his input.

Amrov’s idea was to call Zelensky so he could hear the plan directly from Trump’s team, Axios writes. “They talked and tried to read the points of the plan to the president, but it’s not really possible to do that over the phone,” said a Ukrainian official who strongly objected to the plan and the way it was presented.

Nevertheless, the American team came out of this meeting with the optimism of the Ukrainians. Witkoff also planned to travel to Turkey on Wednesday for direct talks with Zelensky, but that meeting did not take place and the American side felt that the Ukrainians had backed away from their willingness to participate in the plan.

A Ukrainian official blamed the incident on a misunderstanding, saying Zelensky’s team thought Witkoff and Kushner were just presenting preliminary ideas, while the Americans saw it as a formal proposal. Driscoll was then required to formally present the plan to Zelensky in person on Thursday and pressure him to agree to it.

However, the News was met with confusion by officials in European capitals and many in Washington and Kiev who were not yet in the know, Axios writes.

When European officials initially contacted the State Department and asked for clarification, they were told it was not a “Trump plan,” two diplomats familiar with the matter said. But Trump not only accepted the plan, but asked Ukraine to sign it before Thanksgiving.

A Ukrainian official also said that Zelensky agreed to use the plan as a basis for negotiations because he knew he could not reject it and the pressure was mounting by the hour.

At least some in the Trump administration, including Rubio, believed things had moved too quickly, writes the Axios website. However, it was Trump himself who announced the Thanksgiving deadline for Kiev, partly out of frustration with Zelensky. A senior Washington administration official claimed that Trump, who later felt the situation was too chaotic, sent Rubio to Geneva along with Witkoff, Kushner and Driscoll.

According to this report, upon arriving in Switzerland, Rubio emphasized to the Ukrainian team that the United States is not ready to meet until it issues a statement that the plan was not Russian and that the Ukrainians were involved. The American side accused the Ukrainians of leaking negative details to the US press. The Ukrainians also agreed to issue a positive statement to clear up the ambiguity.

Trump and Zelensky could meet this week or early next week if talks show more progress, two sources familiar with the matter said. A date has not yet been set. While both the U.S. and Ukrainian sides issued optimistic statements about Sunday’s talks in Geneva, the several hours of meetings were tense.

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