RUBIO: UKRAINE PEACE PLAN WAS NOT AMERICA’S BUT A LEAKED ‘RUSSIAN WISH LIST’

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told US senators Saturday (11/22) that the sweeping peace plan to end the nearly four-year war between Russia and Ukraine was not America’s — but merely a “leaked” Russian “wish list.”

Rubio told a bipartisan delegation at the Halifax International Security Forum in Canada Saturday  that the 28-point blueprint supposedly crafted to end the war is actually a Russian proposal, not a US initiative, according to South Dakota GOP Sen. Mike Rounds.

“He made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” Rounds said, Politico reported. “It is not our recommendation. It is not our peace plan. It is a proposal that was received, and as an intermediary, we have made arrangements to share it — and we did not release it. It was leaked.”

Rounds, however, said the Trump administration wants to “utilize it as a starting point,” adding that the plan “looked more like it was written in Russian to begin with,” the Associated Press reported.

Independent Maine Sen. Angus King said that, according to Rubio, the plan was a “wish list of the Russians.”

The peace plan sees Kyiv surrendering the entirety of its Donbas region, including territory not controlled by Moscow for more than a decade, shrinking its military by a third and pledging never to join NATO.

Speaking to reporters outside the White House Saturday, Trump said the US proposal was not his “final offer” but warned his patience was running thing, telling The Post that if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rejects the plan, “then he can continue to fight his little heart out.”

The plan, however, has faced sharp criticism both at home and aboard.

European leaders pushed back Saturday on the proposal — seen as widely favorable to Moscow — and huddled on the sidelines of the G20 summit in South Africa to discuss ways to support Kyiv and rewrite portions of the peace plan after Zelensky signaled his country could face losing its dignity and freedom.

“Wars cannot be ended by major powers over the heads of the countries affected,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said at the summit. “We are still quite a way from a good outcome for everyone.”

Poland’s new conservative president Karol Nawrocki issued this statement:

“The emerging proposals to end Russia’s war against Ukraine must take into account the fact that Russia is a country that doesn’t honor agreements (…) The price of peace can’t in any way be the achievement of strategic goals by the aggressor, and the aggressor was and is the Russian Federation.”

Republican senators Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham also took aim at the plan, with the Kentucky lawmaker claiming Russian President Vladimir Putin has been trying to play Trump “for a fool.”

Anna Young is a journaist for the New York Post’s news team.