The Russia-Ukraine war has been going on for far too long. Will it ever end? And will Donald Trump be the one to end it?
According to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Sunday’s peace talks in Geneva on the subject of the Ukraine-Russia war were “productive and meaningful.”
In what Sec. Rubio described as “probably the most productive and meaningful meeting we’ve had so far in this entire process since we became involved,” various officials met in Switzerland to discuss President Donald Trump’s new plan to end the conflict.
“We’re making some changes and adjustments in hopes of further narrowing the differences and getting closer to an outcome that both Ukraine and the United States can be comfortable with,” said Mr. Rubio.
“We’d like to get to peace,” President Donald Trump told reporters on Sunday. “One way or another, we’ll get it ended.”
“We appreciate our American partners working closely with us to understand out concerns to reach this critical point and we expect to make more progress today,” said head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council Rustem Umerov in a statement posted to social media.
“The leadership of the United States is important,” posted Ukranian President Volodymir Zelenskyy. “We are grateful for everything that America and President Trump are doing for security, and we keep working as constructively as possible.”
“It is good that diplomacy has been reinvigorated and that the conversation can be constructive,” President Zelenskyy wrote in a separate statement. “The Ukrainian and American teams, as well as the teams of our European partners, are in close contact, and I do hope that there will be a result. The bloodshed must be stopped, and we must ensure that the war is never reignited.”
In many ways, Zelenskyy has no choice. He must engage with U.S. efforts to end to this war. But already, the European Union is attempting to reshape the Trump peace plan into something more favorable to Ukraine — which Russia might not accept.
“Just as after Donald Trump’s summit with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Alaska this past August, European leaders are offering public lip service to Trump’s efforts to end the war while maneuvering to sabotage any initiative that deviates from their maximalist — and unattainable — goals of complete Russian capitulation in Ukraine,” lamented Eldar Mamedov for Responsible Statecraft on November 22, 2025.
Trump, of course, is one of the few world leaders willing to admit the obvious: Trade and sanction leverage can’t work against Russia as long as EU nations are still buying cheap Russian energy products in bulk.
Otherwise, Putin’s war efforts in Ukraine might have been choked off two years ago.
Europe, for it’s part, beleives it can lure Russian President Vladimir Putin into peace with diplomatic plums like restoration to the G8.
“The best is the enemy of the good,” cautioned political analyst Niall Ferguson on November 20. “Contrary to recent press speculation, the draft 28-point plan for peace in Ukraine is in fact a reasonable basis for negotiations.”
“Journalists can gripe about it as they griped about the 20-point Gaza plan,” he went on. “But wars are not ended by op-eds. Wars are ended either by victory or by compromise. This plan affirms Ukraine’s sovereignty. It provides Ukraine with a US-backed security guarantee. It envisages Ukrainian reconstruction.”
“Of course, the territorial terms and the amnesty for war crimes are hard to swallow,” he admitted. “But if you want to take back territory and try Putin, you have to win the war. And realistically Ukraine has never been in a position to defeat Russia.”
“The critics should also acknowledge that President Trump has taken some risk here do not believe it is in the Ukrainian people’s interests for the war to be prolonged for another year,” Ferguson pointed out. “The risks seem to me too great. So I hope @ZelenskyyUa will use his eloquence to explain why the time is right to negotiate.Ukrainians have fought heroically for their independence. It is now time to consolidate what they have achieved through diplomacy.”
Trump’s media critics certainly have had a lot to say about his Ukraine peace plan, none of it good.
“Trump’s plan for peace in Ukraine is a win-win for Russia,” sniffed Nicholas Grossman for MSNOW, nee MSNBC. “After a year of the U.S. president leaning harder on Zelenskyy than Putin, Washington was unlikely to conduct a real pressure campaign against Moscow.”
“Well, I think this administration — by the way, President Trump ran on the idea of resolving this bloody war,” Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) told the press this weekend. “I mean, this is a meat grinder at this point, and he wants to stop the killing.”
“I think President Trump approaches this as a realist, right?” he said. “You take the world as it is, not how you want it to be, not how you wish it would be, but actually how it is. And the truth of the matter is, and a lot of people won’t say it, is the Ukrainians have been losing for a long time. They’ve lost 20 percent of their territory. They have a manpower problem. They have a munitions problem.”
“I think what President Trump is trying to accomplish is maintain Ukrainian sovereignty, make sure there’s a pathway to rebuild the country, and also lessen the likelihood that this will ever happen again,” he sais. “And so, they put forward a proposal, a framework.”
“You know, Secretary of State Rubio, Secretary of the Army Driscoll, they’re all in Geneva right now, working with the Ukrainians, working with the Europeans, to try to get to some consensus here on the 28 points,” he went on. “I would say that most of those, at least half of those, have been talked about for a long time, and there’s a lot of agreement.”
(Contributing writer, Brooke Bell)