Who authored the 28-point Ukraine peace plan? Mystery surrounds the origin of Trump's proposal

Days after the 28-point plan to end the Ukraine war leaked, there has been confusion about the plan’s origin. On Saturday, the US State Department officials aggressively pushed back on claims made by some Senators that the peace plan to end the Russia-Ukraine war emerged from the Kremlin.

Earlier on Saturday, multiple US Senators told PBS NewsHour and Politico that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told them that the plan in question was not authored by the United States but rather was “received” from an intermediary and is “essentially the wish list of the Russians.”

Republican Senator Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and Angus King (I-Maine) revealed a key aspect of the closed-door discussion on PBS NewsHour. He claimed that Rubio revealed the information to the delegation at the Halifax International Security Forum in Canada on Saturday. “He made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” Rounds told PBS.

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Rubio rejects the report

However, shortly after the claims started to make headlines, Rubio made it clear that the proposal was authored by the United States. “The peace proposal was authored by the US," Rubio wrote in a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

“It is offered as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations … It is based on input from the Russian side. But it is also based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine," he furthered.

While responding to one of Schifrin’s posts, which shared a comment from King saying the plan “is not of the administration’s position,” State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Tommy Pigott wrote on X that the claim “is blatantly false.”

“As Secretary Rubio and the entire Administration have consistently maintained, this plan was authored by the United States, with input from both the Russians and Ukrainians,” Pigott wrote in his post.

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Top Republicans oppose the plan

A senior US official told NewsNation that the proposal “has always been a hopeful start to continued negotiations, and eventually the signing of a final peace agreement once and for all.” According to an Axios report, the plan in question was negotiated by special envoy Steve Witkoff and Kirill Dmitriev, a top ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The report suggested that only a few senior Ukrainian officials were briefed about the deal. Whatever the case may be, the 28-point plan has caught several Kyiv allies in Congress off guard. Some Republican leaders, including Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), have panned the proposal, saying it would reward Putin nearly four years after Russia invaded Ukraine.

The Ukrainian side is concerned about the plan because it includes a provision that would place the regions of Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk under “de facto” Russian control. There are also no major concessions required from Russia, apart from directing $100 billion in frozen Russian assets to Ukraine’s reconstruction.

Former National Security Advisor John Bolton echoed the Republican lawmakers’ comments, arguing the plan was written from “the Russian point of view.” The Russians couldn’t have written a better treaty themselves,” he said during an appearance on NewsNation on Friday. “I think it’s selling out Ukraine.”

Meanwhile, US Vice President JD Vance defended the plan, saying in a post on X that “peace won’t be made by failed diplomats or politicians living in a fantasy land.” “Every criticism of the peace framework the administration is working on either misunderstands the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” Vance wrote on Friday.

Officials from Ukraine, the US, and several European nations are expected to meet in Switzerland on Sunday to discuss the proposal in more detail. It will be interesting to see if the plan is modified after the meeting.

With inputs from agencies.