Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday he would likely meet U.S. leader Donald Trump next Sunday in Florida.
“We have a big agenda. It will be the weekend. I think it will be Sunday, in Florida, we will have a meeting with President Trump,” Zelensky said during a meeting with the press in kyiv, according to statements collected by the Ukrinform agency.
Washington has not publicly confirmed the meeting.
According to the president, the Ukrainian and American delegations will discuss the 20-point plan to end the war, as well as bilateral security guarantees that Washington could provide and an economic agreement.
“The 20-point plan we are working on is 90 percent ready. Our task is to ensure that everything is 100 percent ready,” he said of the peace proposal, in which questions such as what territorial concessions kyiv is willing to make while Moscow publicly maintains its maximalist demands are still open.
The plan is seen as a version of an earlier 28-point document drafted by the Americans and Russians, a proposal widely seen as biased toward the Kremlin’s demands. Ukraine has insisted that security guarantees be based on NATO’s mutual defense commitment under Article 5 of any peace deal, but it is unclear whether Moscow will agree to such conditions.
Before the New Year you can decide “a lot”
This Friday, Zelensky announced on Telegram that he planned to meet with Trump “in the near future” and noted that “a lot of things” could be decided before the New Year, regarding diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
Ukrainian media Kyiv Post had predicted, citing diplomatic sources, that the meeting could take place next Sunday, December 28, at Trump’s residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.
This Thursday, Zelensky had a telephone conversation with White House envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, with whom he discussed “new ideas” on how to achieve peace in Ukraine, in terms of formats, meetings and a road map for the talks.
“Of course, we still have to work on some delicate issues. But together with the American side, we know how to make all this happen. The next few weeks could also be intense,” he anticipated.
This week, Zelensky presented for the first time in detail the 20-point peace plan jointly developed by kyiv and Washington, which includes a non-aggression pact and security guarantees for kyiv.
However, questions remain unanswered, such as the territorial concessions demanded by Moscow or the management of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, under Russian control.
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