Trump says he's sending his envoys to see Putin and Ukrainians after fine-tuning plan to end war

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday his plan to end the war in Ukraine has been “fine-tuned” and he’s sending envoy Steve Witkoff to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll to meet with Ukrainian officials.

Trump suggested he could eventually meet with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but not until further progress has been made in negotiations. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday evening aboard Air Force One, Trump said resolving the war was difficult, and described what had been a 28-point plan as a work in progress. “That was not a plan — it was a concept,” Trump said.

Trump’s plan for ending the nearly four-year war emerged last week. It heavily favored Russia, prompting Zelenskyy to quickly engage with American negotiators. European leaders, fearing for their own future facing Russian aggression but apparently sidelined by Trump in drawing up the proposal, scrambled to steer the negotiations toward accommodating their concerns.

Trump said he believed Witkoff would be meeting with Putin next week in Moscow, with his son-in-law Jared Kushner potentially joining the meeting. “People are starting to realize it’s a good deal for both parties,” Trump said.

The president played down the element of his plan that would require Ukraine to cede territory to Russia, suggesting that Russian forces were already likely to seize the land they're seeking.

“The way it’s going, if you look, it’s just moving in one direction," Trump said. "So eventually that’s land that over the next couple of months might be gotten by Russia anyway.”

At the center of Trump’s plan is the call on Ukraine to concede the entirety of its eastern Donbas region, even though a vast swath of that land remains in Ukrainian control. Analysts at the independent Institute for the Study of War have estimated it would take several years for the Russian military to completely seize the territory, based on its current rate of advances.

Trump made his comments after Driscoll held talks late Monday and throughout Tuesday with Russian officials in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, to discuss the emerging proposal.

“The talks are going well and we remain optimistic,” Lt. Col. Jeff Tolbert, spokesman for the Army secretary, said in a statement. Witkoff, a real estate developer turned diplomat, has been Trump’s chief interlocutor with Putin, while Driscoll, who is close to Vance, has stepped up his involvement in the administration’s peace push in recent days.

As the talks were taking place, Russia launched a wave of overnight attacks on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, with at least seven people killed in strikes that hit city buildings and energy infrastructure. A Ukrainian attack on southern Russia killed three people and damaged homes, authorities said.

Trump spoke to reporters after Bloomberg News published a transcript of an Oct. 14 call between Witkoff and Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov where Witkoff coached his counterpart on how Putin should handle a call with Trump.

Trump downplayed Witkoff’s reported approach as “a very standard form of negotiation.”

But U.S. Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican who has been critical of Trump’s approach to Ukraine, said the transcript showed Witkoff favors the Russians. “He cannot be trusted to lead these negotiations. Would a Russian paid agent do less than he? He should be fired,” Bacon said on social media.

Bloomberg said it reviewed a recording of the call, but did not say how it obtained access to the recording. The Associated Press has not independently verified the transcript.

French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday that peace efforts are gathering momentum and “are clearly at a crucial juncture.”

He spoke after senior U.S. and Ukrainian officials met in Geneva on Sunday and a virtual “coalition of the willing” meeting of Ukraine’s European allies took place on Tuesday. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio took part in both gatherings.

“Negotiations are getting a new impetus. And we should seize this momentum,” he said during the video conference meeting of countries, led by France and the U.K., that could help police any ceasefire with Russia.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said of the talks: “I do think we are moving in a positive direction and indications today that in large part the majority of the text, (Zelenskyy) is indicating, can be accepted.”

Oleksandr Bevz, one of the Ukrainian delegates at the Geneva talks, however, cautioned that it was “very premature to say that something is agreed upon."

In an interview with The Associated Press in Kyiv late Tuesday, he declined to discuss the specifics of any amendments to Trump's plan, but said the U.S. was aware that the strength of security guarantees for Ukraine would “define the sustainability of the deal” and was “the part making this deal real and enforceable.”

Bevz earlier told the AP that the number of points in the proposed settlement was reduced, but he denied reports that the 28-point U.S. peace plan now consisted of 19 points.

”(The document) is going to continue to change. We can confirm that it was reduced to take out points not relating to Ukraine, to exclude duplicates and for editing purposes," Bevz said, adding that some points relating solely to relations between Russia and the U.S. were excluded.

Zelenskyy said late Monday that “the list of necessary steps to end the war can become workable." He said he planned to discuss “sensitive” outstanding issues with Trump.

Rustem Umerov, a senior adviser to Zelenskyy, posted on X on Tuesday that Zelenskyy hoped to finalize a deal with Trump “at the earliest suitable date in November.”

Russian officials have been reserved in their comments on the peace plan. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday that Moscow is in touch with U.S. officials about peace efforts.

"We expect them to provide us with a version they consider an interim one in terms of completing the phase of coordinating this text with the Europeans and the Ukrainians,” Lavrov said.

European leaders have cautioned that the road to peace will be long.

Russia fired 22 missiles of various types and more than 460 drones at Ukraine overnight, Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram. The strikes knocked out water, electricity and heat in parts of Kyiv. Images showed a large fire spreading in a nine-story residential building in Kyiv’s eastern Dniprovskyi district.

Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said 20 people were wounded in Kyiv. The Russian Defense Ministry said it targeted military-industrial facilities and energy assets. The strikes were a response to Ukrainian attacks on civilian objects in Russia, the ministry said.

Liubov Petrivna, a 90-year-old resident of a damaged building in the Dniprovskyi district, told the AP that “absolutely everything” in her apartment was shattered by the strike and “glass rained down” on her.

Petrivna said that she didn't believe in the peace plan now under discussion.

“No one will ever do anything about it,” she said. Russian President Vladimir Putin "won’t stop until he finishes us off.”

The overnight Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s southern region of Krasnodar was “one of the longest and most massive” and wounded six people, Gov. Veniamin Kondratyev said.

Russian air defenses destroyed 249 Ukrainian drones overnight above various Russian regions and the occupied Crimean Peninsula, the Russian Defense Ministry said Tuesday.

Ukraine said that its drones and missiles struck an aviation repair plant and a drone production facility, as well as an oil refinery and an oil terminal.

It was the fourth-largest Ukrainian drone attack on Russia since the start of the war on Feb. 24, 2022, according to an AP tally.

Isobel Koshiw reported from Kyiv, Ukraine. John Leicester in Paris, Stephen McGrath in Leamington Spa, England, Chris Megerian in Washington and Josh Boak in West Palm Beach, Florida, contributed to this report.

France's Chief of the Defense Staff General Fabien Mandon, left, and French President Emmanuel Macron, second left, attend a video conference of the 'Coalition of the Willing' on Ukraine at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025. (Teresa Saurez, Pool Photo via AP)

A security guard looks at a crater in front of a Novus logistics center damaged after a Russian strike on Kyiv, Ukraine, on Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

A Novus logistics center is seen damaged after a Russian strike on Kyiv, Ukraine, on Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Firefighters put out the fire after a drone hit a multi-storey residential building during Russia's night drone attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

A residential building is seen heavily damaged after a Russian strike on Kyiv, Ukraine, on Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Firefighters put out the fire after a drone hit a multi-storey residential building during Russia's night drone attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Rescuers carry the body of a civilian who was killed as a drone hit a multi-storey residential building during Russia's night drone attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Firefighters put out the fire after a drone hit a multi-storey residential building during Russia's night drone attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Local residents react as they watch their burning home after a drone hit a multi-storey residential building during Russia's night drone attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Rescue workers carry a person from a residential building following a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Dan Bashakov)

Emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire following a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Dan Bashakov)

Emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire following a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Dan Bashakov)

People watch as emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire following a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Dan Bashakov)

WALDEN, Colo. (AP) — Hydrologist Maureen Gutsch trudged through the mud and slush to confirm a grim picture: Colorado just had its worst snowpack since statewide record keeping began in 1941.

Even more troubling, mountain snow accumulations peaked a month early and contained just half the average moisture.

As a warm winter with poor skiing conditions gave way to early springtime record heat, snow is vanishing from all but the highest elevations in the West. It's a clear sign that water shortages could worsen the ongoing significant drought, barring an unexpected deluge.

Gutsch struggled to match the mood of the sunny, 56-degree (13.3 degrees Celsius) weather as she stood in a section of the Rocky Mountains that's considered the headwaters of the Colorado River.

“We love being out here. We love being in the snow, taking these measurements. This year, it’s kind of hard to enjoy it because it’s slightly depressing with the conditions that we’ve seen,” said Gutsch, who is with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.

Department hydrologists told The Associated Press of the dismal, record-low snowpack after concluding their field assessments late Tuesday.

Cities in the region are imposing water-use restrictions, and ranchers are wondering how they will feed and water their cattle. Meanwhile, the threat of devastating wildfires looms.

Ranchers in Colorado's scenic mountain valleys near the Continental Divide are, in a sense, among the first in the region affected by drought, being nearest to the melting mountain snowpack.

They hardly need Gutsch to tell them how parched this winter and spring have been. They remember past droughts — bad ones in 2002, 1981, 1977 — and wonder just what this dry winter will mean for their operations.

“I’ve never seen it so warm so early and no snow all winter long,” said Philip Anderson, a retired teacher who also has ranched most of his life in Colorado's North Park valley.

The heaviest snows in the Rockies fall in late winter and early spring, including now. Snowfall isn't unusual in the highest regions even into June.

Anderson’s place is at about 8,100 feet (2,500 meters) in elevation. There, in a typical year, a foot (30 centimeters) or more of snow will linger on his pastures until springtime, helping the grass to green up and stock water ponds to refill.

But without snow on the land, his cows are grazing his grass before it can grow high, and several of his ponds are dry. The ditch that would usually move water from the nearby Illinois River to his property is also dry — tapped already by neighbors with more senior water rights than his.

“A lot of the people which are closer to the mountains have to let the water go by and let those folks with the senior water rights have it,” Anderson said.

The last time Anderson had to haul water in his truck from a nearby wildlife refuge was in 2002. That same year, he had to sell off his herd.

North Park — about 100 miles (161 kilometers) from the South Park valley that inspired the cartoon TV show — is a headwaters of the eastward-flowing Platte River system. Thirty-five miles (56 kilometers) to the west of Anderson's place, across the Continental Divide, is the Stanko Ranch on the Yampa River.

Jo Stanko dreads low flows because they allow her cattle to wade across the Colorado River tributary. Then they need to be rounded up and brought back home.

This year, Stanko has been watering her parched meadow earlier than ever in her 50 years of ranching. She plans to cut hay before June and is considering buying hay soon to feed her 70 cows afterward.

“Hay's always a good investment, you know, because it might be really expensive,” she said.

An old saying in the West is that whiskey's for drinking and water's for fighting over. It applies all the more when water becomes scarce amid a decades-long drought driven in part by human-caused climate change.

Meanwhile, the river's Upper Basin states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming remain at an impasse in negotiations with the Lower Basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada to create new rules for managing the water during shortages.

Like the water itself, time is running short — the current rules expire in September.

A recent federal plan would conserve river water “completely on Arizona's back,” Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs told a U.S. Chamber of Commerce meeting in March.

Upper Basin states say their cities, farmers and ranchers already use far less water than they are entitled to under the existing agreements. That's because they honor senior water rights — some of which date to the 1880s — before those who own newer rights during droughts, Becky Mitchell, the Colorado River negotiator for Colorado, recently told other Upper Basin representatives.

“When there is less, we use less. This is not voluntary and no one gets paid as a result,” Mitchell said.

After missing multiple deadlines set by federal officials in recent months to, at least, create outlines of an agreement, the two sides are hiring more lawyers in case the dispute goes to court.

After the driest and warmest winter on record, Salt Lake City announced a 10% daily cut in water use.

Reductions will be voluntary for residents, but the biggest nonresidential water users will have to consume no more than 200,000 gallons (2.6 million liters) per day.

On the other side of the Rockies, Denver Water approved limits to watering lawns and other restrictions, with hopes of achieving a 20% cut.

Water officials urged even less watering. Lawns in the Front Range region are just beginning to green up and don't need watering twice a week until at least mid-May, they pointed out.

The city gets much of its water from mountain snow that accumulates east of the Continental Divide and on the western side. Tunnels under the mountains divert half the city's water from snow-fed streams on the western side.

“We’re 7 to 8 feet (2 to 2.4 meters) of snow short of where we need to be,” Nathan Elder, water supply manager for Denver Water, said in a statement. “It would take a tremendous amount of snow to recover at this point, so it’s time to turn our attention to preserving what we have.”

On the same day Denver approved the water restrictions, the city set a new high temperature record for March: 87 degrees (30 Celsius).

The previous record of 85 degrees (29 Celsius) was set just a week earlier.

Drought was bearing down west of the Rockies, too. In California, snowpack in the Sierra Nevada measured only 18% of the average for this time of year, state data showed.

Hot, dry weather is a recipe for wildfires. While other parts of the U.S., including the South and Southwest, face higher fire risk this spring, forecasters expect the threat in the Rockies to rise as above-average temperatures and below-normal precipitation persist into summer.

This week, the region is getting a reprieve of cooler, damper weather, with snow back in the forecast by the end of the week in North Park. But Anderson said he needs a lot more — half an inch (1 centimeter) of rain every other day for several days — to get out of the drought.

Until then, he suggested that North Park senior and junior water-rights holders work together to ensure everybody has enough.

"It’s pretty serious,” Anderson said. “If we just talk and communicate together and cooperate, we might be able to make it through this. But we’ll see.”

Amy Taxin in Santa Ana, California, contributed.

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Philip Anderson pulls plastic off a bale of hay, Tuesday, March 31, 2026, in Walden, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Domestic well water fills a stock tank, Tuesday, March 31, 2026, in Walden, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Philip Anderson looks at a dry ditch that usually transports water for stock and irrigation, Tuesday, March 31, 2026, in Walden, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Snow surveyors, hydrologist, Maureen Gutsch, left, and Clinton Whitten weigh a snow sample, Monday, March 30, 2026, in Kremmling, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Clinton Whitten and hydrologist Maureen Gutsch, back, measure snow, Monday, March 30, 2026, in Kremmling, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)