President Donald Trump insisted Sunday that Ukraine and Russia are “closer than ever” to a peace deal as he hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at his Florida residence. He acknowledged, however, that negotiations could still fail and prolong the war for years.
The president’s remarks follow a meeting between the two leaders, which took place after what Mr. Trump called an “excellent” two-and-a-half hour telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose invasion of Ukraine sparked the war four years ago.
Donald Trump insisted he believed Mr Putin still wanted peace, even as Russia launched a new round of attacks on Ukraine while Mr Zelensky traveled to the United States for the latest round of negotiations.
“Russia wants Ukraine to succeed,” Donald Trump said at a press conference late in the afternoon, after his meeting with Mr. Zelensky, whom he repeatedly described as “courageous.”
Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky both acknowledged that thorny questions remained, including whether Russia could retain the Ukrainian territories it controls. After their meeting, they brought together by telephone a large 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.
Mr. Zelensky thanked Mr. Trump for his work. “Ukraine is ready for peace,” he assured.
Trump and Putin will talk again
Donald Trump announced that he would recall Vladimir Putin after their meeting. Earlier on Sunday, Mr. Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuriy Ushakov, said the call between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin, initiated by the United States, lasted more than an hour and took place in a “friendly, caring and professional” atmosphere.
Mr. Ushakov said the two leaders had agreed to speak again “quickly” after Mr. Trump’s meeting with Mr. Zelensky. However, Ushakov added that a “courageous and responsible political decision is needed by kyiv” regarding the hotly contested Donbass region in eastern Ukraine and other disputed points, in order to achieve a “complete cessation” of hostilities.
During the night, three guided aerial bombs launched by Russia hit private homes in Sloviansk, in the east of the country, according to the head of the local military administration, Vadym Lakh. Three people were injured and one man died, Lakh said in a message posted on the messaging app Telegram.
This strike came the day after the Russian attack on the Ukrainian capital on Saturday using ballistic missiles and drones. This attack left at least one dead and 27 injured, according to Ukrainian authorities. Explosions rang out across kyiv at the start of the attack, which lasted several hours.
Donald Trump, however, said that he still believed that Vladimir Putin was “very serious” about ending the war.
“I believe Ukraine has also carried out some very powerful attacks,” Mr. Trump told reporters, as Mr. Zelensky stood beside him.
Donald Trump noted that it was possible that the negotiations could fail. “In a few weeks we’ll know one way or another, I think. But it could also go wrong.”
The face-to-face meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky underscored the apparent progress made by Donald Trump’s top negotiators in recent weeks, as the two sides exchanged draft peace plans and continued to develop a proposal to end the fighting.
Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that the 20-point draft proposal reviewed by negotiators was “about 90 percent finished,” echoing a figure and optimism expressed by U.S. officials when Mr. Trump’s top negotiators met with Mr. Zelensky in Berlin earlier this month.
During these recent discussions, the United States agreed to offer Ukraine certain security guarantees similar to those offered to other NATO members. This proposal comes as Mr. Zelensky indicated that he was ready to withdraw his country’s candidacy for the alliance if Ukraine benefited from protection comparable to that of NATO, designed to protect it against future Russian attacks.
“Intensive” weeks to come
On Christmas Day, Volodymyr Zelensky also spoke with US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law. The Ukrainian leader clarified that they had discussed “some important details” and warned that “there is still work to be done on sensitive issues” and that “the coming weeks could also be intense.”
The US president has worked to end the war in Ukraine for most of his first year in office, expressing irritation with Mr Zelensky and Mr Putin while publicly acknowledging the difficulty of resolving the conflict. Long gone are the days when, as a presidential candidate in 2024, he boasted of being able to resolve battles in a day.
After receiving Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House in October, Donald Trump demanded that Russia and Ukraine cease hostilities and “stop at the front line,” implying that Moscow should be able to keep the annexed Ukrainian territory.
Last week, Mr. Zelensky said he was ready to withdraw his troops from Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland as part of a peace plan, provided that Russia also withdraws and the area becomes a demilitarized zone under international supervision.
Vladimir Putin has publicly stated that he wants all areas of the four key regions conquered by his forces, as well as the Crimean peninsula, illegally annexed in 2014, to be recognized as Russian territory. He also insisted that Ukraine withdraw from some areas of the country’s east that Moscow’s forces have not conquered. kyiv has publicly rejected all these demands.
The Kremlin also wants Ukraine to renounce its NATO membership. He warned that he would not accept any troop deployments from members of the military alliance and would consider them a “legitimate target.”
Mr. Putin also argued that Ukraine should limit the size of its army and grant official status to the Russian language, demands he has been making since the start of the conflict.
Mr. Ushakov told the Kommersant business daily this month that Russian police and national guards would remain in parts of Donetsk — one of the two main areas, along with Luhansk, that make up the Donbass region — even if it became a demilitarized zone under a possible peace plan.
He warned that finding a compromise could take time. He said the US proposals, which took into account Russian demands, had been “deteriorated” by changes proposed by Ukraine and its European allies.
Donald Trump appeared somewhat receptive to Vladimir Putin’s demands, arguing that the Russian president could be persuaded to end the war if kyiv agreed to cede Ukrainian territories in the Donbass and if Western powers offered economic incentives to reintegrate Russia into the global economy.
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Seung Min Kim reported from Washington and Elise Morton reported from London. The Associated Press’ Illia Novikov (Kyiv), Nicholas Riccardi (Denver) and Darlene Superville (Washington) contributed to this report.
