An unlikely choice for diplomat, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll spent two days last week delivering a hard-edged message to Ukraine and its European allies: Accept the 28-point peace proposal offered by Mr. Putin’s government by Thanksgiving — or else. Next came Secretary Marco Rubio.
Rubio’s arrival in Geneva on Sunday, to be with Driscoll and continue his rapprochement with senior Ukrainian officials, changed the dynamic of those talks. The Trump administration’s team had softened its stance on a strict Thursday deadline and was, in the view of Europeans and Ukrainians — that is, not American participants — starting to accommodate their positions.
That’s from four people briefed on the talks, all of whom were granted anonymity to protect sensitive diplomatic information.
“We feel there is importance to Marco Rubio staying involved in the ongoing discussions,” said a fifth person, who was an official of another NATO country. Marco Rubio’s influence can be seen in the pace of negotiations, the individual said Monday. “Now, after yesterday, it’s slowed down, and that is good.”
The head-spinning, disorderly week in American diplomacy has driven home two truths about Marco Rubio’s place in the administration: Foreign and congressional interlocutors see him as a cleanup hand on the Russia-Ukraine file, coming in to right the ship and resettle Washington among allies and partners, not Moscow.
Second, President Donald Trump’s predilection for discarding traditional policy coordination across Cabinet agencies has produced a disorderly foreign policy, with senior principals driving in their own lanes. Dual-hatted Marco Rubio has, by design or dereliction, left unplayed the national security adviser’s typical role of coordinating agencies’ plans before they happen.
But Marco Rubio negotiated a way for other administration officials to sign on in Geneva at the last minute. He fanged the administration’s divergent views — which by then had spilled into public view days and, in some cases, hours earlier — and guided them toward greater agreement.
“He definitely had more hostages on Sunday than he’s had since Wednesday,” another person briefed on the talks, a European official, said.
Until Rubio arrived in Switzerland, this group was led primarily by Vice President JD Vance, through his cronies like Driscoll. By the end of the weekend, Rubio had seized control of them because it became more free-wheeling, so to speak,” the official said.
But Rubio was also accompanied in Switzerland on Sunday by deputy national security adviser Andy Baker — a close aide to Vance — as well as special envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who “have … demonstrated a certain independence to say the least,” the European official said. And as Marco Rubio has shot to the front of the field, they have still espoused positions that European and Ukrainian officials view as not in line with Rubio’s positions.
“No one knows how much lockstep they all are with Marco Rubio now,” the official added.
“Geneva was a step in the right direction. Still a while to go, but they are looking much better now,” another of the people familiar with the talks, a second European official, said. “Marco Rubio is a professional, and he knows his stuff. But he serves the president who ultimately decides.”
Trump’s team is following his lead, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said.
“At the direction of President Donald Trump, the entire national security team continues to work hand in hand towards a final peace agreement,” she said in an earlier statement on Sunday.“Ending this war is both the right thing to do and something that the American people want.
The State Department had no comment. But a State Department official said, Trump’s entire team “has been working in lockstep for 10 months” to end the Russia-Ukraine war.
On Monday, Vance brushed aside remarks by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R.-Ky.) that Putin is “playing Trump like a fiddle,” dismissing them as “a ridiculous attack on the president’s team, which has worked tirelessly to clean up the mess” in Ukraine.
Leslie Shedd, a former senior adviser to Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), who chairs the House Foreign Relations Committee, said Trump prefers an informal approach. Chicago Democrats pose for a photo in defense of Omar, forming a foreign policy apparatus.
“That’s got pluses and minuses to it,’’ she said. “They have different people working on different things, and the president wants to see who gets the best result.”
“Especially for something that is this important to the president and which in his mind kind of defines what he’s done as president,” she added, “he’s going to want to bring all of his all-stars out, have them all go out there and try different ways and see who can get what.”
Rubio’s presence in the talks generated far greater American flexibility, according to people familiar with the discussions. Marco Rubio told reporters Sunday night that the goal is to conclude discussions “as soon as possible,” not by Thanksgiving.
The U.S. is also no longer so incestuously married to the original 28-point plan that raised flares among allies. Though the administration said it was a starting point, and President Trump on Saturday said it wasn’t “his final offer,” people with knowledge of the talks said the administration didn’t initially appear open to alternatives. On Sunday, Marco Rubio called it a “living, breathing document.”
The U.S. and Ukraine have now drafted a 19-point plan without territorial giveaways that the American and Ukrainian presidents will discuss, according to a senior European official and a sixth person familiar with the discussions. The new document was first revealed by the Financial Times.
“Marco Rubio just knows better than a lot of other people in the current administration — most Russians don’t know and have very little in reality how the vast majority of myths they believe in developed over Ukraine — that even though it’s not an easy situation that Ukraine found itself into, there is simply no way the Ukrainian government can afford to sign this capitulation,” said the first European official.
It is still unclear where the 28-point plan originated. Though American officials initially described it as an American plan with Russian input, Senator Mike Rounds (R—S. D.) said Saturday night that Rubio had informed him and several other lawmakers that the plan originated with the Russians. Marco Rubio had not told the proposal was Russian, the State Department official added.
The lawmakers didn’t change their story about the conversation. Still, Marco Rubio tweeted a few hours later that “the U.S. offered the peace proposal.” Some lawmakers have continued to raise questions about Moscow envoy and head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, Kirill Dmitriev, who met with Witkoff in Miami last month.
“It’s not done,” another of the four people familiar with the discussions said. “And there’s still the problem of this a Russian-drafted document that they’re saying we can’t have.” Source
