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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is preparing to meet Donald Trump within days to discuss the most politically sensitive parts of a US peace proposal that would ultimately be presented to Russia.
The meeting, which European officials expect to take place at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, would mark the culmination of weeks of intense diplomacy that began in November with the publication of a 28-point plan drawn up by the US with the participation of Russian officials.
“We have agreed on a meeting at the highest level,” Zelenskyy wrote on X on Friday morning. “A lot can be decided before the New Year.” One Ukrainian official familiar with the preparations said a meeting could come as soon as Sunday in Florida.
The original US draft demanded Ukraine cede the parts of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region it still controlled, sending Ukrainian and European negotiators scrambling to revise what Kyiv described as unacceptable concessions to Russia.
Weeks of intense negotiations spread between Florida, Berlin and Abu Dhabi brought the plan closer to Ukrainian expectations, with Zelenskyy announcing on Tuesday that discussions with US negotiators were on a text that “largely reflect the joint Ukraine-American position”.
But the Ukrainian president admitted during a briefing with reporters in Kyiv that a 20-point peace plan still contained provisions Ukraine did not agree with. Zelenskyy said discussions on “sensitive issues” — including possible territorial concessions — would need to happen in a one-on-one meeting with Trump.
European leaders were also planning a new round of talks with the “coalition of the willing” — countries, including the UK, which have pledged to help support Ukraine and peace talks — in January, a French official close to the Élysée said on Friday.
There was “no solution but to keep trying” to convince Russia of a workable plan, the Élysée official said, adding that at some stage Europeans would have to have a direct dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin, as French President Emmanuel Macron has suggested.
Armin Laschet, a senior MP from Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrats, on Thursday called for Germany to be a central part of any effort to resume contact with Moscow.
Unresolved issues include conditions under which Kyiv would accept a withdrawal of combat forces from some parts of the front line, the fate of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and the precise contours of the security guarantees the US would be ready to offer Kyiv.
Zelenskyy has said he would be ready to order a pullback of “heavy forces” from potential demilitarised zones if Russian troops mirrored the withdrawal. Kyiv would then maintain sovereignty over the crucial fortress belt of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, part of the old industrial powerhouse of eastern Ukraine that Moscow has attempted to seize since its 2022 invasion.
Moscow still insists its maximalist demands should form the basis of any peace negotiations as Putin remains confident his army can defeat Ukraine on the battlefield.
“The strategic initiative is completely in the hands of Russia’s armed forces. That means our forces are advancing across the entire front line,” the Russian president said last week during his end-of-year marathon press conference.
Russian forces have kept pressing in recent weeks, entering the town of Huliaipole in the southern Zaporizhzhia region and taking control of most of the stronghold of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. But Ukrainian counter-attacks have forced Russian troops to pull back from most areas of the town of Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region, despite Russian command announcing the capture of the town in November.
Putin insisted during a late-night meeting with business leaders that Moscow still saw control of the entire Donbas region as a precondition for any peace, according to Russian newspaper Kommersant. He also reportedly suggested that the Zaporizhzhia power plant could be managed by both Russia and the US, excluding Ukraine from the process.
Additional reporting by Sarah White in Paris and Laura Pitel in Berlin