Some of the Senate GOP’s top Russia hawks are up in arms over a peace plan President Donald Trump hopes will end Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
The plan — which would see Ukraine ceding Crimea, Donbas, Luhansk and parts of Kherson and Zaporizhia; place limits on Kyiv’s military and permanently block a pathway to NATO membership — has drawn the ire of Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), who are urging the White House to refrain from actions they say would be detrimental to the region.
“While there are many good ideas in the proposed Russia-Ukraine peace plan, there are several areas that are very problematic and can be made better,” Graham, a Trump ally who has long promoted a bill that would place crippling sanctions on Moscow, wrote in a post on X Saturday. “The goal of any peace deal is to end the war honorably and justly - and not create new conflict.”
McConnell, who hasn’t shied away from criticizing the White House over defense and foreign policy since Trump won reelection last year, compared the proposal to former President Joe Biden’s harried exit from Afghanistan in 2021.
“Putin has spent the entire year trying to play President Trump for a fool,” he said in a statement Friday. “If Administration officials are more concerned with appeasing Putin than securing real peace, then the President ought to find new advisors. Rewarding Russian butchery would be disastrous to America’s interests. And a capitulation like Biden’s abandonment of Afghanistan would be catastrophic to a legacy of peace through strength.”
In a Friday post on X, Wicker said that he was skeptical that the “so-called ‘peace plan’” could achieve real peace and detailed his opposition to limiting the size of Ukraine’s military.
“The size and disposition of Ukraine’s armed forces is a sovereign choice for its government and people,” he wrote. “And any assurances provided to Putin should not reward his malign behavior or undermine the security of the United States or allies.”
The three senators are far from the only Republicans wary of the president’s sudden push for peace. A coalition of House lawmakers led by Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Penn.), a co-chair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, has announced plans to force a discharge petition over the sanctions legislation shortly after returning from the Thanksgiving recess.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s European allies are fuming, and experts caution the 28-point plan, drafted with Russian input, may actually undermine Ukraine’s push for sustainable peace.
But the White House believes now is its best chance to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to make peace as the Ukrainian leader faces scandal at home. The administration has given him until Thanksgiving — which is under a week away — to agree to the proposal.
Despite the pressure campaign, Trump himself suggested Saturday that his mid-week missive to Ukraine wasn’t set in stone.
“We're trying to get it ended. One way or the other, we have to get it ended,” Trump told reporters outside the White House when asked whether the deal sent to Zelenskyy was his final offer. “He can continue to fight his little heart out.”
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