After about two hours of closed-door meetings with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, US President Donald Trump said a deal to end the war in Ukraine was “very close” to being reached. In a news conference with reporters, Zelensky also said he and European leaders would meet with Trump in Washington in January. The meeting, shrouded in expectations, however, ended without a clear indication of when a ceasefire might be announced — Trump cited about “two weeks” — and what points are still under discussion.
— We had a great conversation with European leaders and we made 95% progress. “We’ve made a lot of progress,” Trump said. “I would like to see this agreement concluded. Russia and Ukraine want it. I don’t want to say when, but I think we will get there.”
- High voltage: Ukraine’s third-largest city faces power, water and heating shortages due to Russian attacks
- Outlook 2026: Ukrainian miners left behind by wartime diplomacy
Trump hosted Zelensky for discussions on a new peace proposal aimed at ending Ukraine’s nearly four-year conflict with Russia. The 20-point plan was developed after weeks of negotiations between Washington and kyiv, but has yet to receive approval from Moscow and gains weight after a massive Russian missile and drone attack on kyiv the day before.
Prepared by teams from both countries, the document covers everything from security mechanisms intended to prevent further aggression to sensitive standoffs, including the future of the strategic Donbass region and control of the nuclear power plant currently under Russian occupation.
— We must respect our people and the territory we control. We have different positions on this, the Ukrainian leader said when asked about the transfer of territories to Russia.
The Kremlin previously said that Putin and Trump did not support a joint European and Ukrainian initiative aimed at a temporary ceasefire before a final solution and that, according to Moscow, kyiv must make a decision regarding Donbass.
- To understand: Trump’s peace plan freezes borders, cedes Donbass to Russia and pressures Zelensky
Asked about control of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, a major point of contention in peace negotiations, Trump once again defended the Russian leader and said Putin was open to working with Ukraine. Ukraine has repeatedly stated that it will not cooperate with Russia.
The meeting took place at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach — the first meeting between the two men since October, when the Republican rejected Zelensky’s request for long-range Tomahawk missiles. Ukraine had been pushing for such a meeting for weeks, ever since the United States resumed diplomatic efforts to broker a deal.
Before Zelensky’s arrival, Trump said on his Truth Social platform that he had just had a “very good and productive telephone conversation with the president of Russia.”
Putin’s top foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, confirmed the call and said the two leaders agreed that a long-term peace deal “would be better than the temporary ceasefire proposed by the Ukrainians and Europeans.” kyiv, he added, must make a “courageous and responsible political decision” regarding Donbass, a region that Moscow wants Ukraine to cede entirely. Russia currently controls about 75% of Donetsk and about 99% of its neighbor Luhansk; together, the two regions form Donbass.
— Taking into account the situation on the front line, kyiv should not postpone this decision, — Ushakov said at a press conference. — It would be wise to take this decision regarding Donbass without delay.
Zelensky said Saturday during a stopover in Canada that he hoped the talks would be “very constructive.” At the same time, he repeatedly questioned whether Moscow was truly committed to seeking peace or was simply biding its time. Russia’s attacks on civilian targets, including a massive barrage on the Ukrainian capital on Saturday, proved, Zelensky said, that the Kremlin had no real interest in ending the war.
“Russia continues to torment our cities and our people. Moscow has even rejected proposals for a Christmas ceasefire and is escalating the brutality of its missile and drone attacks,” he said on social media as he headed to Florida. “It’s a clear sign of how they actually view diplomacy there. So far, not seriously enough.”
Analysts say Putin, encouraged by his forces’ slow but steady advance on the battlefield, is unlikely to accept the peace proposal and will instead stick to its higher demands. Among them, the cession of a significant part of Ukrainian territory and the reduction of the Ukrainian armed forces.
Russia accuses Ukraine and its European allies of trying to “sabotage” an earlier U.S.-brokered plan to end the fighting. Stepping up pressure on the battlefield, the Kremlin announced on Saturday that it had captured two other cities in the east of the neighboring country, Myrnograd and Guliaipole.
“If the kyiv authorities do not want to resolve this issue peacefully, we will resolve all the problems we face by military means,” Putin said on Saturday.
He was also quoted by the official Tass news agency as saying that “the leaders of the kyiv regime are in no hurry to resolve this conflict peacefully.”
European Union leaders Ursula von der Leyen and António Costa, who took part in a virtual meeting with Zelensky, assured that the European Union’s support for Ukraine would never waver and promised to maintain pressure on the Kremlin to reach an agreement.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Sunday rejected the idea of sending European peacekeepers to Ukraine, a possibility previously raised by some Ukrainian supporters. European troops in Ukraine would constitute a “legitimate target” for Russian armed forces, Lavrov said in an interview with the Tass agency. He insisted there was “no reason to fear” Russia would attack Europe.
— After the change of government in the United States, Europe and the European Union have become the main obstacle to peace, Lavrov accused on Saturday. — They do not hide their plans to prepare for a war with Russia, the ambitions of European politicians literally blind them. Not only do they not care about Ukrainians, but they also seem to not care about their own population.
The talks will focus on a plan that would end the war along the current front lines and could force Ukraine to withdraw its troops from the east, allowing the creation of demilitarized buffer zones. As such, it contains kyiv’s most explicit recognition of possible territorial concessions. However, it does not provide for Ukraine’s withdrawal from the 20% of the eastern Donetsk region that it still controls – Russia’s main territorial claim.
Trump has made ending the wars in Ukraine and Gaza the centerpiece of his second term as a self-proclaimed “peace president.” But the war in Ukraine, by his own admission, turned out to be much more difficult than expected.
Zelensky was keen to show he was fully committed to Trump’s peace initiative, being flexible and willing to make concessions. In recent days, he has sometimes appeared to be trying to bluff the Kremlin.
He told reporters on Tuesday that he was ready to withdraw Ukrainian troops from areas of the Donbass region still under kyiv’s control and turn those areas into a demilitarized zone – provided that Russia withdraws its forces from an equivalent area. Russia has insisted on retaining all the land it has conquered since its full-scale invasion nearly four years ago and has also demanded the parts of Donbas that Ukraine still controls.
Zelensky also said he was ready to hold his country’s first general elections since 2019 – a Russian demand to which Trump agreed – provided security could be guaranteed. This shifted responsibility to the White House and Russia.
At the same time, the Kremlin appears to have been careful not to reject the peace proposal outright, perhaps to avoid angering Trump. Russian officials have instead called for more discussions and dialogue.
Ukraine insists it needs more funding and weapons from Europe and the United States, including drones.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who met with Zelensky on Saturday, announced new economic aid of $1.82 billion (about 10 billion reais at current exchange rates) to help Ukraine rebuild after the end of the war.
The latest Russian attack, in which 500 drones and 40 missiles bombarded kyiv, left hundreds of thousands of residents without power or heat in freezing weather. Electricity has since been restored “to every house in the capital”, DTEK, the largest private investor in Ukraine’s energy sector, said on Sunday.
The military administration in the town of Kherson, south of kyiv, said Russia launched an attack overnight, also leaving part of the town without power.
With AFP and the New York Times.
About The Author
