Zelensky demands 60-day ceasefire in exchange for historic vote on ceding land to Russia ahead of Mar-a-Lago peace summit

Volodymyr Zelensky hopes to end the war between his country and Russia with the help of President Donald Trump.

In an interview with axios, Ukraine’s president has said he would be open to putting his latest peace plan to a referendum if the Kremlin agrees to a ceasefire that will last at least 60 days.

Zelensky announced Friday morning that he was planning a last-minute trip to President Trump’s ‘Winter White House’ in Florida in hopes of negotiating a peace deal before the New Year.

In the statement sent to the X account on Friday morning, Zelensky noted that his chief negotiator Rustem Umerov “reported his latest contacts with the American side.”

He continued his post, “We are not losing a single day,” and added: “We agreed with President Trump to hold a meeting at the highest level in the near future.”

Setting a timeline for the last negotiation, the Ukrainian leader stated that ‘many things can be decided before the New Year’.

Kyiv Post reported on friday He said Zelensky was ‘expected to travel to Florida in the coming days for substantive talks at Mar-a-Lago, a potential venue for a meeting with US leaders’.

Trump has no public events on his schedule for Friday, and the White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Mail’s request for comment to confirm details about a possible meeting.

Trump welcomes Russian President Vladimir Putin at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, on August 15, 2025. The two leaders met for peace talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine.

Talks at Trump’s home in Florida are expected to focus on the structure, timing and content of a potential ceasefire.

Zelensky had previously held a marathon meeting with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner on Christmas Day, which he described as an intense discussion about how to stop hostilities.

“We have some new ideas,” Zelensky said after the meeting. ‘Some documents have already been prepared. From what I can see, they are almost ready and some documents are fully prepared.’

Trump has done his best to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine since taking office in January, but it has yet to yield results.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who came to Alaska for a meeting last August, also met with Trump. The event was planned to last longer than it did, but was cut short as negotiations undoubtedly turned sour.

In an interview with Politico earlier this month, Trump was angered by Zelensky’s failure to accept the Ukraine peace deal and warned that Russia had the ‘upper hand’ in the war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and U.S. President Donald Trump attend a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on August 18, 2025

The president said at the time that the Ukrainian leader needed to “pull himself together and start accepting some things.”

Trump also made harsh criticism of America’s ‘weak’ European allies, accusing them of ‘talking too much’ but ‘not delivering’ peace to the Ukrainian people.

“I think they are weak,” the commander in chief told Politico in an interview. ‘But I also think they want to be politically correct.’

“I guess they don’t know what to do,” he added. ‘Europe doesn’t know what to do.’

Trump increased pressure on Zelensky and Vladimir Putin last month by unveiling a 28-point peace plan modeled on the landmark Gaza agreement.

But the plan faces serious obstacles, especially regarding potential territorial concessions that Ukraine could grant to Russia and safeguards against future military action.

Zelensky also famously argued with the Vice President during his visit to the White House in February.

J.D. Vance publicly belittled the Ukrainian president for not being respectful enough to Trump during a dramatic Oval Office meeting at the White House in February.

At the time, the Vice President went into attack mode when he felt Zelensky was disrespecting the US leader.

“Mr. President, respectfully, I think it’s disrespectful for you to come to the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media,” Vance said after Zelensky repeatedly intervened and objected to Trump’s statements.

A source familiar with the White House meeting told the Daily Mail at the time that Zelensky’s demeanor was surprising to American officials in the room.

‘No one expected the meeting to end this way because no one expected it.’ [him] “To act this way,” the source said.

Vance noted that Biden stood up for four years, “thumped his chest” and “talked tough,” but Putin still invaded Ukraine.

Vance said in February: ‘Perhaps the path to peace and prosperity is through diplomacy.’