Trump and Zelensky speak after peace plan meeting as president says they are ‘very close’ apart from ‘one or two thorny issues’

Donald Trump celebrated the success of highly anticipated peace talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and declared they were ‘very close’ to reaching agreement on all but ‘one or two thorny issues’.

The president had previously welcomed Zelensky with open arms to his Mar-a-Lago mansion when he arrived in Florida on Sunday to discuss with Trump a 20-point plan that could end the nearly four-year war between Russia and Ukraine.

The two later admitted that they could not find middle ground on some of the most difficult issues, including the future ownership of the Donbas region, the Ukrainian territory that he had fought to preserve throughout the war.

“This is a very difficult question,” Zelensky said when asked about Donbas.

‘You know our situation, I mean, we must respect our laws and our people. We respect the territory we control. And of course our stance is very clear.’

Trump responded by saying that “some of the land has been seized” and that “it could be seized, but it could be seized in the next few months.”

‘They acted very bravely. “They fought so hard and they continue to do so much damage, but Russia wants to see this end, Ukraine wants to see this end,” he said.

‘We can be very close. There are a few very complicated, very difficult issues, but I think we are doing very well. We’ve made a lot of progress today, but we actually made it last month. ‘This is not a one-day process agreement, this is a very complex thing.’

Trump was asked what the timeline for ending the war might look like, but noted that there were still many obstacles on the path to peace.

‘We’ll know one way or another in a few weeks,’ he said. ‘We may have something where an element you didn’t think about is a large element and it smashes it.’

He admitted that ‘it was a very difficult and very detailed negotiation.’

But he offered a grim dose of reality for the future if the deal fails, warning: ‘They keep fighting and they keep dying.’

When Trump returned to the White House in January, he had initially hoped that ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict would be a simple and quick victory for his administration, and had expressed disappointment with both Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin at various stages of the negotiations.

America’s 20-point plan includes security guarantees to protect Ukraine from future invasions by Moscow, primarily through Ukraine’s EU membership and the maintenance of a peacetime army of 800,000 troops funded by Western allies.

But just before going to meet with Zelensky, Trump lashed out at a reporter who asked about security guarantees.

“What a stupid question,” he angrily shouted. ‘Nobody even knows what the security agreement will mean. A security agreement will be made. It will be a strong agreement. European countries are very interested in this issue.’

Zelensky arrived in Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday morning to discuss with Trump a 20-point plan that could end the nearly four-year war between Russia and Ukraine.

This incident came just a day after Russia launched a barrage of missiles on Kiev, killing at least one person and injuring 20 more, according to the mayor of the Ukrainian capital. (Image: A private residential building in the Darnytskyi district after a Russian drone attack on Saturday)

Writing on Truth Social ahead of the brief press conference, Trump also said he “had a very good and very productive phone call with Russian President Putin” and was “in the final stages of talking” with each president at Mar-a-Lago.

‘We are in the final stage of the conversation… It will either end, or it will continue for a long time and millions more people will die. “No one wants this,” he said.

Trump added that he believes Putin is ready for a ceasefire. ‘Too many people are dying, and I think both presidents want to make a deal,’ he said.

“I believe we have what it takes to get a deal that works for Ukraine and for everyone,” Trump continued. ‘There is nothing more important. ‘I’ve finished eight battles and this is the hardest.’

But at a press conference with Zelensky, Trump refused to go into further detail about his conversations with Putin.

“We weren’t talking about the weather, we weren’t talking about what a beautiful day it was in Palm Beach, Florida,” Trump said.

‘Russia wants to see Ukraine succeed. It sounds a little strange, but President Putin has been very generous in his feelings that Ukraine will be successful, including the supply of energy, electricity and other things at very low prices.’

Zelensky has previously acknowledged that the hardest points to agree on will be the fate of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine and who will gain control of the Russian-occupied nuclear power plant.

This incident came just a day after Russia launched a barrage of missiles on Kiev, killing at least one person and injuring 20 more, according to the mayor of the Ukrainian capital.

Writing to X before the summit on Saturday, Zelensky said: ‘The number one or only priority for us is to end the war. For us, the priority is peace.

‘We need to be strong at the negotiation table.’ To be strong, we need the support of the world: Europe and the United States.’

Zelensky said his country needs more air defense, weapons and money.

While Russian President Vladimir Putin showed little interest in negotiating a peace agreement, Zelensky said Ukraine was “ready to do whatever it takes to stop this war.”

“If the whole world, Europe and America are on our side, we will stop Putin together,” he wrote.

Zelensky added that he started the day with a ‘detailed telephone conversation’ with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, where ‘preparations for a meeting with President Trump’ and ‘consequences of Russian attacks’ were discussed.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described Europe as the “biggest obstacle to peace” and praised Trump’s efforts to achieve peace.

In his interview with the Russian news channel, Lavrov said, “After the change of administration in the USA, Europe and the European Union have become the biggest obstacle to peace.” tass It was published on Sunday.

Trump told Policy He thought the meeting in Palm Beach would go well, but added: ‘Zelensky has nothing until I approve it.’

“We’ll see what he’s got,” the US president said in comments published Friday.

The engagement was the sixth meeting between Trump and Zelensky this year, and their relationship had been improving since their fiery Oval Office fight on Feb. 28.

The first meeting turned into a heated argument, with Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance accusing Zelensky of not showing gratitude for U.S. support.

In early December, the US President’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. He also told reporters that his father might withdraw from supporting Ukraine if Kiev refused to sit at the negotiating table with Moscow.

Last month, Trump expressed his desire to end the war to make business deals with Putin, hoping to bring billions of dollars from the Russian economy to the United States.

a report Wall StreetJournal It details how Trump’s team, including son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff, negotiated with Russia on how to “bring their $2 trillion economy out of the cold.”

Witkoff reportedly hosted Putin’s ‘hand-picked’ negotiator Kirill Dmitriev and Kushner at a Miami Beach beachfront estate to draw up a plan to end the war, while also ensuring that American businesses outperform their European counterparts in making money once the conflict ends.

Dmitriev is said to be pushing for $300 billion of Russian central bank assets frozen in Europe to be used in US-Russia joint investment projects and the ‘US-led reconstruction’ of Ukraine.

During a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Saturday, Zelensky said the key to peace was “pressure on Russia and adequate, strong support for Ukraine.”

To this end, Carney announced that Ukraine had received another 2.5 billion Canadian dollars (US$1.8 billion) in economic aid from his government to help rebuild Ukraine.

Condemning the “barbarity” of Russia’s latest attacks on Kiev, Carney stated that both Zelensky and Trump created the necessary conditions for a “fair and lasting peace” at a critical moment.

Sitting face to face, Trump and Zelensky underscored the apparent progress Trump’s top negotiators have made in recent weeks as the sides exchanged views on draft peace plans and continued to shape a proposal to end the conflict.

Zelensky told reporters on Friday that the 20-point draft proposal discussed by negotiators was ‘about 90 percent ready’; That echoed the number and optimism conveyed by U.S. officials when Trump’s chief negotiators met with Zelensky in Berlin earlier this month.