Leading European and Ukrainian diplomats gathered in Geneva on Sunday for discussions with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubi concerning a newly proposed peace plan aimed at resolving the ongoing four-year conflict.

This plan, developed from talks between Washington and Moscow, includes several concessions to Russian demands—concessions that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has consistently opposed, especially those involving ceding substantial territorial claims.

Rubio’s reported comments cause confusion

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk expressed on Sunday Poland’s willingness to collaborate on the proposal alongside European, Canadian, and Japanese leaders. However, he noted the importance of clarifying the plan’s origin and authorship.

On Saturday, some American lawmakers remarked that Rubio characterized the plan more as a Russian “wish list” rather than a strategy led by Washington.

A bipartisan group of senators, after being contacted by Rubio en route to Geneva, held a press conference to share their discussions with him. Independent Senator Angus King from Maine reported Rubio’s assertion that the plan was not an official U.S. administration proposal but rather aligned with Russian interests.

In response, a spokesperson for the State Department refuted these claims, labeling them as “blatantly false.”

Rubio himself then took the extraordinary step of suggesting online that the senators were mistaken, even though they said he was their source for the information. The secretary of state doubled down on the assertion that Washington was responsible for a proposal that had surprised many from the beginning for being so favourable to Moscow.