'Gusano' Rubio, NATO Try to Sabotage Trump Ukraine Peace Initiative
Nov. 25—Sources close to the White House have confirmed that Russian-hating, Cuban émigré Secretary of State Marco Rubio, working on behalf of the interests of European NATO leaders and their puppet Ukrainian dictator Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has tried to sabotage the Trump Peace Plan for Ukraine, altering the original draft version to include language and points that he knows Moscow will never accept.
Rubio, not Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, who had been in discussions with the Russians on cobbling together a 28-point draft plan that was deliberately leaked by Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, the pro-NATO, pro-Zelenskyy Gen. Keith Kellogg, to allow for a full neo-con mobilization against it, led discussions with a Ukrainian delegation in Geneva Nov. 23. That meeting produced an altered and dramatically different 19-point plan. Sources who have seen the plan say that it is a non-starter for the Russians. The previous Witkoff plan provided Moscow with concessions that allowed Russian President Vladimir Putin to accept it as a framework for peace discussions that could lead to a negotiated end to the bloody conflict, which NATO had provoked with its plans to include Ukraine and continue its eastward march towards Russia’s borders.
Putin’s Demands and Battlefield Realities
Putin and other Russian spokesmen have demanded that any peace agreement address the root causes of the conflict, which include NATO’s eastward expansion, as well as the promotion of Nazi-like, anti-Russian policies internal to Ukraine. The Witkoff plan, which contained points to be negotiated by the parties, accepted these premises, as well as facing the reality of the battlefield, which sees Russia’s onslaught threatening to rout Ukrainian forces along the more than 1,000-mile front lines in a war that Ukraine has already hopelessly lost.
Rubio, who suffers from anti-Russian bias dating from Moscow’s support for the Castro government in Cuba that expelled what it called the “gusano” (birdshit) sector of the population, including his parents, that had exploited the Cuban people, pushed back against the idea that the war is lost and that Russia will not be defeated in Ukraine. According to sources, he had privately criticized the Witkoff proposal as surrender to the Russians, as did Zelenskyy, the European misleaders of NATO, and the raving anti-Russian neocons in this country supported NATO’s war in Ukraine as a way to defeat Russia and bring down Putin, who they claimed, with lunatic fervor, had plans to invade and take over all of Europe.
Details of Rubio’s Revisions
While the full details of the Rubio-steered revisions to the Trump plan are not known, there are reports that Rubio had eased the ban on Ukraine’s membership in NATO, refused all concessions of lost Ukrainian territory to Russia, and most importantly left open the possibility of a European peacekeeping force to be deployed in Ukraine—all points unacceptable to Moscow. The Witkoff plan offered amnesty on all alleged war crimes committed during the war and provided for no reparations to be paid by the Russians; the Rubio revisions open the door for both.
Sources report that the amnesty provision was a demand from the Ukrainians, which came from Witkoff’s discussions with Zelenskyy envoy Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Secretary Rustem Umerov, to swap out for a line that would have forced Kyiv to conduct a “full audit of all aid received and create a legal mechanism to recover errors found and punish those who illegally profiteered from the war,” various sources confirmed. Such an audit would reveal that Zelenskyy and his top aide Andriy Yermak had run the world’s largest arms bazaar, selling American weapons for cash to drug cartels, terrorists, and anyone who would pay their prices, sources report. That language did not come from the Russians, but from Donald Trump himself.
Trump’s Reactions and Shifting Positions
The President, these sources report, was furious with the “insane” Europeans and Zelenskyy for their response to his peace initiative. In a post on his Truth Social account, Trump raged against the ingratitude of Zelenskyy for what he was trying to do for Ukraine and had done.
But Trump, who in recent months has wavered between accepting the reality of a losing war and refusing to openly take on neo-cons in Congress such as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) in their support for the corrupt regime in Kyiv and its fight against “Putin’s evil empire,” seemed to support Rubio’s sabotage of his own peace plan.
Rubio emerged from the meeting with the Ukrainians stating that the agreement was “a living, breathing document” that has “evolved.”
“None of it is insurmountable,” Rubio added. “The items that remain open are not insurmountable, we just need more time.”
Trump, who had originally set Thanksgiving (Nov. 27) as the deadline for the Ukrainians to sign on to his peace plan, seemed now to be more flexible. The President, who insisted that the 28-point peace plan was never a “final offer,” billed the talks in Geneva as positive, teasing that “something good just may be happening” as the administration works to broker peace.
Conflicting Plans and Intelligence Assessments
Sources report that the Rubio plan appears to be a warmed-over version of a plan previously backed by the Europeans and Kyiv, which the Russians had rejected last spring. The Trump plan was not “a Russian wish list,” as Rubio had mischaracterized it last week, but a walking back by Trump to the framework for an agreement directly negotiated with Putin at the Alaska summit in August. He was then greeted with furious blowback from inside his own administration, by circles around Rubio and people in the “Department of War,” as well as the neo-cons in Congress, who claimed Trump had capitulated to Putin. He then allowed himself to be temporarily convinced by Kyiv and NATO that Ukraine could somehow hang on, and that it might even defeat the Russians if it could last longer. So Trump walked in the opposite direction, proposed more aid to Ukraine, and put sanctions on two Russian oil companies, trying to cut off the flow of cash to Moscow that supported its war effort.
But then saner elements in the intelligence community intervened, producing reports that countered British, NATO, and Kyiv manipulations of battlefield information to argue that the war was hopelessly lost and that Russia could militarily achieve all its goals. Once again Trump flipped, and ordered Witkoff to work with the Russians on fleshing out a plan based on the Alaska agreements, which became the 28-point plan, leaked to the NATO propaganda machine by its enemies, most notably Kellogg.
“Nothing has changed on the battlefield,” said a source, who remarked that all of Trump’s flip-flops have people’s heads spinning. “Ukraine is still losing, at an even faster pace. It is likely that Russia will hold all of Donbass by mid-December and will gain control of positions in the North shortly after that. At that point, the war is over. Ukraine has lost. NATO has lost. And the blame game begins. Kyiv and NATO will blame their defeat on America, and on Trump.
“It is impossible for NATO’s leadership to come to any kind of realistic view,” said the source. “They must continue to believe that Russia threatens Europe, as they must also believe that Russia, whose economy is but a fraction of the size of the European and American economies, cannot defeat a unified Europe and America. Yet it already has. Russia is a great power, with a military capability proven to be superior to NATO. Instead of accepting this, and moving as the Trump plan demanded, towards a new, more stable security and economic architecture for Europe, NATO is inclined to ramp up the confrontation, to challenge Russia to fight a nuclear war.
“Will Trump stand up against this insanity?” the source continued. “His inclination is to do so. To walk the U.S. away from confrontation requires an act of political courage on a scale that no political leader in recent times has shown. But if he wants peace, he will have to take on NATO and the neo-cons. And he will need to find a way to get rid of the gusano Rubio as well. There are rumors that he has presidential ambitions. He is likely, if left around, to blow up the world before he can realize them.”
Putin’s Position and Ongoing Negotiations
Putin commented yesterday that he is awaiting the transmission of the revised plan. In his comments last week to the Russian Security Council, he explained that a military solution in Ukraine is both easier and provides a cleaner result than diplomacy. Russia will continue to pursue a military victory if diplomacy fails. But in discussions with Russia’s allies around the world, including China, they had all urged him to be flexible and seek a negotiated settlement that would end the war. Russia, he said yesterday, will continue to pursue both paths.
Meanwhile, U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll held talks late yesterday and early today with Russian officials in Abu Dhabi to discuss the now modified Trump peace plan.
“Late Monday and throughout Tuesday, Secretary Driscoll and team have been in discussions with the Russian delegation to achieve a lasting peace in Ukraine. The talks are going well and we remain optimistic. Secretary Driscoll is closely synchronized with the White House...as these talks progress,” said U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Tolbert, a spokesperson for Driscoll.
The exact nature of the discussions was not immediately clear, and it was not known who was in the Russian delegation. A U.S. official said that Driscoll, who has emerged as a point man for U.S. diplomatic efforts on Ukraine, was also expected to meet Ukrainian officials while in Abu Dhabi.
A White House source said that despite Rubio's talk about a joint U.S./Ukrainian plan, President Trump intends to have his own Trump Plan that will be presented to both sides. The implication is that Trump may choose to reject points or wording negotiated with Kyiv by Rubio.
"Stay tuned," said the source. "This could get pretty wild."