LONDON — British plans to host a summit Wednesday on Ukraine were thrown into disarray after top U.S. representatives pulled out at the eleventh hour and Ukraine pushed back at proposals from Donald Trump’s administration to recognize Russia’s illegal 2014 annexation of Crimea.
The U.K. will instead host scaled-back talks over plans for a ceasefire after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff, a key American player in negotiations with Moscow, withdrew from talks, citing a scheduling conflict.
The pair canceled in a last-minute about-face that underscores tensions between the Trump team and its European allies over the fate of the Ukraine-Russia war. Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, is headlining talks from the U.S. side instead, but it is Witkoff who has been a crucial go-between in talks with Russia over the conflict.
The Ukrainians were heading to London ready to talk about a 30-day interim ceasefire proposal that France and the U.K. appeared willing to support.
But the Trump administration instead wants to focus on the president’s peace deal plan, presented to Ukraine as a take-it-or-leave-it option, two people familiar with the administration’s internal plans and proposal said.
Trump’s peace proposal involves a potential lifting of sanctions and U.S. informal recognition of Russia’s control over Crimea. The latter is a nonstarter for Kyiv.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday that Ukraine had yet to receive any official proposals from the U.S., and would never recognize Crimea or any other territories as Russian, because such a move would go against the Ukrainian constitution.
“There is nothing to talk about,” he said. “This violates our constitution. This is our territory, the territory of the people of Ukraine.”
He warned that “discussing everything at once will only prolong [the] war and lead to U.S. fatigue and withdrawal or pressure on Ukraine.”
U.S. Vice President JD Vance told reporters in India on Wednesday that the U.S. had issued a “very explicit proposal” to Russia and Ukraine to end the conflict, adding: “The current lines, somewhere close to them is where you’re ultimately, I think, going to draw the new lines in the conflict.”
‘We will work for peace’
The ditching of talks leaves the high-level European delegations traveling to London — from France, Germany, the U.K. and Ukraine — in a bind.
The U.K. Foreign Office decided that the meeting of “the Quad” — the U.K., U.S., France and Germany — with Ukraine would now be conducted by officials instead of Foreign Secretary David Lammy hosting. Lammy will drop in on talks and still hold a bilateral meeting with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha.
Sybiha arrived in London Wednesday morning alongside Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov and Zelesnkyy’s top aide Andriy Yermak.
Yermak said in a statement: “Despite everything, we will work for peace.”
He added: “As agreed in Paris, we will meet with American and European interlocutors who are in the British capital today.
“The path to peace is not easy, but Ukraine has been and remains committed to peace efforts. Back in Jeddah in March and subsequently at other meetings, Ukraine clearly demonstrated that it is not an obstacle to peace.
“Today we will talk about ways to achieve a full and unconditional ceasefire as the first step towards a full-fledged settlement process and achieving a just and sustainable peace.”
Trump’s plan is expected to be presented to Ukrainian officials during the meeting.
Lammy spoke with Rubio about the terms of a potential ceasefire agreement Tuesday night, writing on X that it was a “critical moment for Ukraine, Britain and Euro-Atlantic security.”
Rubio tweeted he had a “productive conversation” and pledged to reschedule his trip to the U.K. in the “coming months.”
Noah Keate contributed to this report.
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