Donald Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky held crunch talks in Florida on Sunday night as part of efforts to seek a peace deal for Russia’s war against Ukraine, but Trump said it would be “clear in a few weeks” whether or not the talks had succeeded.
The meeting at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, where he is spending the festive season, came shortly after the US President said he had held a “very productive” phone call with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Zelensky touched down in Miami on Sunday morning after meeting Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Halifax, Nova Scotia, following another night of Russian drone and missile attacks in Kyiv and across Ukraine.
However, while nothing seemed to go backwards, it is unclear what concrete progress was made.
President Zelensky said the peace plan was “90 per cent” ready, the same as before the talks, while President Trump highlighted “one or two thorny issues” that were not yet settled.
When pushed by reporters, he said that this referred to land: possibly the Donbas region, which Putin wants Russia to claim and which Zelensky is clear that Ukraine will not relinquish.
Moscow and Kyiv remain fiercely at odds over the fate of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.
Zelensky said an agreement on security guarantees for Ukraine has been reached. Trump was slightly more cautious, saying that they were 95 per cent of the way to such an agreement, and that he expected European countries to “take over a big part” of that effort with US backing.
Zelensky had said he hopes to soften a US proposal for Ukrainian forces to withdraw completely from the Donbas region, a Russian demand that would mean ceding some territory held by Ukrainian forces.
Volodymyr Zelensky and his team met Donald Trump and members of his administration at Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida (Photo: Jim WATSON / AFP via Getty Images)Sir Keir Starmer said he was eager to sustain the momentum of Ukraine peace talks as he spoke with Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders over an hour-long call as part of the talks.
A Downing Street spokesperson said the call “underlined the importance of robust security guarantees and reaffirmed the urgency of ending this barbaric war as soon as possible.”
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They said: “The Prime Minister emphasised the UK’s commitment to working closely with partners to sustain momentum in the coming days – with President Trump highlighting his leadership in driving coordinated international support for Ukraine as talks continue.”
The head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen was also on the call and said she welcomed “good progress”.
“There was good progress, which we welcomed. Europe is ready to keep working with Ukraine and our US partners to consolidate this progress,” she said.
“Paramount to this effort is to have ironclad security guarantees from day one.”The two leaders were joined in the Mar-a-Lago dining room by a US delegation including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Dan Caine. Zelensky was supported by his senior negotiating team.
Trump called Zelensky “very brave”, adding that a deal would bring “economic benefits” for Ukraine. He said: “I’ve settled eight wars and this is the most difficult one.” Following his meeting with Zelensky, Trump spoke again to Putin over the phone.
The Kremlin said that Putin and Trump think Ukraine must make a decision on Donbas without delay and that they do not support a European-Ukrainian push for a ceasefire ahead of a settlement.
But Sunday’s meeting underscored the diplomatic progress that has been made in recent weeks.
Zelensky told reporters on Friday that the 20-point draft proposal negotiators have discussed is “about 90 per cent ready” – echoing a figure, and the optimism, that US officials conveyed when Trump’s chief negotiators met with Zelensky in Berlin earlier this month.
Ahead of the meeting, Zelensky said that “a lot can be decided before the New Year” but warned that “whether decisions will be made depends on our partners”.
He also spoke by phone with Sir Keir Starmer, filling him in “on the situation on the frontline and on the consequences of Russian strikes”.
President Donald Trump welcomes Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida (Photo: Jim WATSON / AFP via Getty Images)Zelensky’s office said he would speak by phone with Western allies after his meeting with Trump. In an interview published by state news agency Tass on Sunday, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov claimed that following Trump’s re-election in the US, “Europe and the European Union have become the main obstacle to peace”.
Sir Keir Starmer said he was eager to sustain the momentum of Ukraine peace talks as he spoke with Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders over an hour-long call as part of the talks.
A Downing Street spokesperson said the call “underlined the importance of robust security guarantees and reaffirmed the urgency of ending this barbaric war as soon as possible.”
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They said: “The Prime Minister emphasised the UK’s commitment to working closely with partners to sustain momentum in the coming days – with President Trump highlighting his leadership in driving coordinated international support for Ukraine as talks continue.”
The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, was also on the call and said she welcomed “good progress”.
“There was good progress, which we welcomed. Europe is ready to keep working with Ukraine and our US partners to consolidate this progress,” she said.
“Paramount to this effort is to have ironclad security guarantees from day one.”
Trump has been working to end the war in Ukraine for much of his first year back in office, showing irritation with both Zelensky and Putin while publicly acknowledging the difficulty of ending the conflict.
After hosting Zelensky at the White House in October, Trump demanded that both Russia and Ukraine halt fighting and “stop at the battle line”, implying that Moscow should be able to keep the territory it has seized from Ukraine.
Like that meeting in October, Trump revealed that he had spoken to Putin shortly before holding talks with Zelensky.
“I just had a good and very productive telephone call with President Putin,” he posted on Truth Social.
The Kremlin claimed the call lasted an hour and fifteen minutes but during his post-talks press conference, Trump upped the duration to two and a half hours.
During the recent talks, the US agreed to offer certain security guarantees to Ukraine similar to those offered to other members of Nato.
The proposal came after Zelensky said he was prepared to drop his country’s bid to join the security alliance – a key Russian demand – if Ukraine received Nato-like protection that would be designed to safeguard it against future Russian attacks.
Last week, Zelensky also said that he would be willing to withdraw troops from Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland as part of a plan to end the war, if Russia also pulls back and the area becomes a demilitarised zone monitored by international forces.
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