At the end of October, representatives of the Trump administration met in Miami. Among the participants were special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
With them was Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriyev, who heads Russia’s State Investment Fund (RDIF) and who has been appointed as Putin’s special envoy for investment and economic cooperation.
The investment fund and Dmitrijev are on the US sanctions list, but received an exception to be able to participate.
PEACE PLAN: Political editor at Dagbladet, Lars Helle, reacts to the latest news about the peace plan Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have come up with.
RDIF and Dmitriyev were blacklisted after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The sanctions effectively prohibit American citizens and companies from having anything to do with him or the fund.
Dmitriyev also said he was in the United States for a long-planned meeting, but would not say who he would meet. According to Reuters’ sources, this meeting ended in a 28-point plan to end the war.
The plan is presented as Trump’s peace plan for the war in Ukraine, but many believe that Putin is the real architect.
Threatening a ceasefire
Table of Contents
– Russian proposal
The plan sent shockwaves through Europe, as in the eyes of most it goes a long way in giving Russia what it wants.
According to Republican Senator Mike Rounds, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a group of senators that the peace plan “was not an American proposal”, writes Politico.

In the conference call with the Republican senators, Rubio is said to have said that this was a Russian proposal.
– He was very clear that we were the recipients of a proposal. It was handed over to one of our representatives. This is not our recommendation. That is not our peace plan. The proposal was received, and as an intermediary we arranged to share it, but we did not make it public. It was leaked, says Rounds.
According to the BBC, Rubio also said that it was Russia who leaked the plan.

– Not our peace plan
Rubio denies the claim
Publicly, however, Rubio denies that the peace plan was written by Russia.
“The peace proposal was written by the United States. It has been presented as a strong framework for the ongoing negotiations. It is based on input from the Russian side, but it is also based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine,” writes Rubio on X.
The plan came as a surprise to US officials and has caused confusion both in Washington and at several European embassies, writes Reuters.

“This so-called peace plan has real problems, and I’m very skeptical that it will bring peace,” said Senator Roger Wicker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Defense Committee.

– We are worried
Raises questions
According to Reuters’ sources, Dmitriev’s participation has caused unrest in the American intelligence community. According to the sources, several fear that he is trying to use such contacts to promote Russian interests.
It is unclear whether he came to the meeting with concrete demands from Moscow, and whether these were eventually included in the peace plan.
Two people with knowledge of the meeting told Reuters that Rustem Umerov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, was also in Miami earlier this week to discuss the plan with Witkoff.
– My task during the visit to the USA was to organize meetings and prepare dialogue. I made no judgments, and more importantly, no endorsement of any points. This is not within my authority and is not in accordance with the procedures, writes Umerov on Telegram.

– A shopping list from Russia
During Trump’s first term as president, Dmitriyev established contact with people in the president’s circle in an attempt to “reset” relations between Washington and Moscow.
Despite the sanctions, he has had contact with profiles such as Erik Prince and Jared Kushner. During the pandemic, he cooperated with Kushner on deliveries of Russian ventilators to the United States – which, according to a US official Reuters spoke to, raised concerns in the Treasury Department about possible sanctions violations.
According to Reuters, the CIA did not want to comment on the case.

– Will be catastrophic
Taken to bed
According to Reuters, many high-ranking officials in the US State Department and the National Security Council were taken to bed, as they are said to have not been briefed on the plan.
Two people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters that the special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg – who has been working with the Ukrainians to negotiate an end to the war and plans to step down in January – was also kept out of the talks led by Witkoff and Dmitriev.
MET: When New York’s incoming mayor, Zohran Mamdani, was asked about his earlier comment that Trump is a fascist, Trump replied this. Video: AP.
A senior US official told Reuters that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was briefed on the 28-point plan, but did not specify when.
“Secretary of State Rubio has been closely involved throughout the process of developing a plan to end the war in Ukraine. Any suggestion otherwise is completely false. That includes talks with both sides of the conflict, many times, to facilitate the exchange of ideas to establish a lasting peace,” State Department Deputy Chief Spokesman Tommy Pigott said in a statement.

Fearing a break with the US
Rejects territory relinquishment
Part of the proposal implies that Ukraine must cede territory. Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, Olha Stefanishyna, rejected the possibility on Thursday evening.
– The territorial integrity of Ukraine and changing Ukraine’s borders is not something that should be put on the negotiating table, she said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi promised on Friday that he will not let down the country’s interests.
– We did not betray Ukraine then, and we will not do it now, Zelenskyy said.
Trump said Saturday that he is open to making changes to the plan.
– The war must end one way or another, he said.

Open to changes in the peace proposal
