PALM BEACH, Fla. β President Donald Trump on Sunday insisted Ukraine and Russia are βcloser than ever beforeβ to a peace deal as he hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at his Florida resort, but he acknowledged the negotiations are complex and could still break down, leaving the war dragging on for years.
The presidentβs statements came after the leaders met for talks following what Trump said was an βexcellent,β two-and-a-half-hour phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose invasion of Ukraine launched the war nearly four years ago. Trump insisted he believed Putin still wants peace, even as Russia launched another round of attacks on Ukraine while Zelenskyy flew to the United States for the latest round of negotiations.
βRussia wants to see Ukraine succeed,β Trump said during a late afternoon news conference as he stood with Zelenskyy after their meeting. He repeatedly praised his counterpart as βbrave.β
Trump and Zelenskyy both acknowledged thorny issues remain, including whether Russia can keep Ukrainian territory it controls, as well as security guarantees for Ukraine to ensure it's not invaded again in the future. After their discussion, they called a wide group of European leaders, including Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, and the leaders of Finland, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Poland.
Zelenskyy said Trump had agreed to host European leaders again, possibly at the White House, sometime in January. Trump said the meeting could be in Washington or βsomeplace.β
Zelenskyy thanked Trump for his work. βUkraine is ready for peace,β he said.
Trump and Putin will speak again
Trump said he'd follow the meeting with another call to Putin. Earlier Sunday, Putinβs foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said the Trump-Putin call was initiated by the U.S. side and was βfriendly, benevolent and businesslike.β Ushakov said Trump and Putin agreed to speak again βpromptlyβ after Trumpβs meeting with Zelenskyy.
But Ushakov added that a βbold, responsible, political decision is needed from Kyivβ on the fiercely contested Donbas region in eastern Ukraine and other matters in dispute for there to be a βcomplete cessationβ of hostilities.
Both leaders identified deciding the future of the Donbas region as a major sticking point.
Trump said the parties were inching closer to agreement. βThat's a very tough issue but one that I think will get resolved,β he said.
Zelenskyy said: βOur attitude is very clear. That's why President Trump said this is a very tough question and, of course, we have with Russia different positions on it.β
Trump said, however, that he still believes Putin is βvery seriousβ about ending the war, even as Russia continued striking targets in Ukraine as Zelenskyy traveled to the U.S. Trump said, βI believe Ukraine has made some very strong attacks also.β
He held out the possibility that negotiations could still fall apart.
βIn a few weeks, we will know one way or the other, I think," Trump said. "We could have something where one item that youβre not thinking about is a big item, breaks it up. Look, itβs been a very difficult negotiation. Very detailed.β
Trump and Zelenskyy's sit-down underscored the apparent progress made by Trumpβs top negotiators in recent weeks as the sides traded draft peace plans to end the fighting. Zelenskyy told reporters Friday that the 20-point draft proposal negotiators have discussed is βabout 90% readyβ β echoing a figure, and the optimism, that U.S. officials conveyed when Trumpβs chief negotiators met with Zelenskyy in Berlin this month.
During the recent talks, the U.S. agreed to offer certain security guarantees to Ukraine similar to those offered to other members of NATO. The proposal came as Zelenskyy said he was prepared to drop his countryβs bid to join the security alliance if Ukraine received NATO-like protection that would be designed to safeguard it against future Russian attacks.
βIntensiveβ weeks ahead
Zelenskyy also spoke on Christmas Day with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trumpβs son-in-law. The Ukrainian leader said they discussed βcertain substantive details" and cautioned βthere is still work to be done on sensitive issuesβ and βthe weeks ahead may also be intensive.β
The U.S. president has been working to end the war in Ukraine for much of his first year back in office, showing irritation with both Zelenskyy and Putin while publicly acknowledging the difficulty of ending the conflict. Gone are the days when, as a candidate in 2024, he boasted that he could resolve the fighting in a day. Indeed, on Sunday, Trump referred multiple times to the complexity of the negotiations.
After hosting Zelenskyy at the White House in October, Trump demanded that both Russia and Ukraine halt fighting and βstop at the battle line,β implying that Moscow should be able to keep the territory it has seized from Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said last week that he would be willing to withdraw troops from Ukraineβs eastern industrial heartland as part of a plan to end the war, if Russia also pulls back and the area becomes a demilitarized zone monitored by international forces.
Putin wants Russian gains kept, and more
Putin has publicly said he wants all the areas in four key regions that have been captured by his forces, as well as the Crimean Peninsula, illegally annexed in 2014, to be recognized as Russian territory. He also has insisted that Ukraine withdraw from some areas in eastern Ukraine that Moscowβs forces havenβt captured. Kyiv has publicly rejected all those demands.
The Kremlin also wants Ukraine to abandon its bid to join NATO. It warned that it wouldnβt accept the deployment of any troops from members of the military alliance and would view them as a βlegitimate target.β
Putin also has said Ukraine must limit the size of its army and give official status to the Russian language, demands he has made from the outset of the conflict.
Ushakov told the business daily Kommersant this month that Russian police and national guard would stay in parts of Donetsk -β one of the two major areas, along with Luhansk, that make up the Donbas region β even if they become a demilitarized zone under a prospective peace plan.
Ushakov cautioned that trying to reach a compromise could take a long time. He said U.S. proposals that took into account Russian demands had been βworsenedβ by alterations proposed by Ukraine and its European allies.
Trump has been somewhat receptive to Putinβs demands, arguing that the Russian president can be persuaded to end the war if Kyiv agrees to cede Ukrainian land in the Donbas region and if Western powers offer economic incentives to bring Russia back into the global economy.
