Europe pushes back on US peace plan for Ukraine with higher army cap and Nato-style pact

European officials have agreed on a proposed cap for the size of Ukraine’s armed forces as part of ongoing peace negotiations in Geneva.

The European counter-offer recommends limiting Kyiv’s military to 800,000 personnel, pushing back against the 600,000 cap included in Donald Trump’s 28-point peace plan unveiled on Friday. Ukraine’s army currently numbers about 850,000, still making it one of the world’s largest even under the revised ceiling.

The suggested limit marks a major shift from three years ago, when Moscow proposed a peacetime Ukrainian force of just 85,000 during talks in Istanbul.

According to a document seen by Reuters, European countries earlier submitted a modified version of the US plan that challenges both the troop cap and proposed territorial concessions. The European draft states that territorial swap negotiations should begin from the Line of Contact, rather than accepting any areas as “de facto Russian,” as outlined in the US proposal.

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The counter-proposal was prepared by the European E3 — Britain, France and Germany and retains the US plan as its foundation, but offers point-by-point deletions and amendments.

It also calls for Ukraine to receive a US security guarantee comparable to NATO’s Article 5, strengthening Kyiv’s security assurances under any future deal.

It pushes back on the U.S. proposal for the use of Russian assets frozen in the West, primarily in the European Union.

”Ukraine will be fully reconstructed and compensated financially, including through Russian sovereign assets that will remain frozen until Russia compensates damage to Ukraine,” the document says.

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The US plan proposed that $100 billion of frozen Russian funds would be invested in a ”US-led effort to reconstruct and invest in Ukraine” and that the US would receive 50% of the profits from that venture.

The US also proposed that the balance would be invested in a ”separate US-Russia investment vehicle”.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and head of Ukraine’s delegation Andriy Yermak both hailed “good progress” in talks underway in Geneva Sunday to discuss a proposal to halt the Ukraine war.

“We have very good progress, and we are moving forward to the just and lasting peace Ukrainian people deserve,” Yermak told reporters, while Rubio said of the talks, which were continuing into the evening, that they were “probably the most productive and meaningful … so far in this entire process”.

With inputs from agencies