Trump-Zelenskyy Talks Yield No Progress On Ukraine-Russia Territorial Issues

KYIV, Dec 29 (Reuters) – Despite progress on security guarantees for Kiev in talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Russia and Ukraine remain far apart on territorial issues that have hampered a peace deal.

After his meeting with the Ukrainian President on Sunday, Trump said they were “much closer, maybe very close” to an agreement to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, but that “tough issues” remained.

Zelenskyy said two main issues outlined in the 20-point peace proposal remain to be resolved: control of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is in Russian hands, and the fate of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.

“There are two questions left: the station – how will the station work? – and the region,” Zelenskyy told reporters on Monday.

Underlining how far away Kiev and Moscow’s territory is, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Ukraine should withdraw its troops from the small part of Donbas that is still under its control, and that if Kiev does not reach an agreement, it will lose more territory.

“We are talking about the withdrawal of the regime’s armed forces from Donbas,” Peskov said.

He said a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin was planned soon, but he did not say when.

Trump’s decision to meet with Zelenskyy in Florida on Sunday has raised hopes that at least some progress will be made towards ending what has become Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.

Russia controls about a fifth of Ukraine, including the Crimean peninsula it annexed in 2014. In addition to Donbas, which includes the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, it also claims the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, but all of these regions are internationally recognized as sovereign territory of Ukraine.

Russia wants Kiev to withdraw its troops from parts of the Donetsk region, which it has failed to occupy in the four-year war since it invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Kiev wants a cessation of fighting on existing front lines, and Washington has proposed establishing a free economic zone if Ukraine withdraws its troops.

“There is no detailed concept of the free economic zone yet,” Zelenskyy said.

Russia has rejected the idea of ​​a ceasefire that would allow a referendum on Ukraine’s territorial concessions.

A sign of progress on Sunday came when Zelenskyy said a bilateral agreement had been reached on security guarantees for Kiev, but Trump said only 95% of them were ready.

“I told (Trump) that we have been at war for almost 15 years and we would very much like the guarantees to continue for longer,” Zelenskyy said, adding that he had asked Trump to consider a security agreement for up to 50 years.

Trump said Sunday he expected European countries to “take on a large part” of that effort with U.S. support. Agreeing on such moves could be complicated by Russia saying any deployment of foreign troops to Ukraine would be unacceptable.

French President Emmanuel Macron said progress had been made on security guarantees and that countries in the so-called “Coalition of the Volunteers” would meet in Paris in early January to “finalize concrete contributions”.

Despite recent peace overtures and some prisoner-of-war exchanges, mistrust between Ukraine and Russia is deepening.

Russia launched a heavy attack on Ukraine before the talks in Florida started, and increased its attacks on Ukraine’s energy facilities as winter approached. Power was out in large parts of the capital Kiev on Monday as temperatures dropped below freezing after the strike.

After meeting with Putin on Sunday, Trump reiterated his belief that the Russian leader wants the war to end.

Zelenskyy questioned Putin’s commitment to peace, saying, “In my opinion, (Putin’s) actions do not correspond to the seemingly peaceful rhetoric he uses in his dialogue with the US president.”

Zelenskiy said he was open to all kinds of communication with Russia and that the meeting could be possible after Trump and European leaders agree on a peace framework. Peskov said that no meeting between Putin and Zelenskiy was discussed.

Putin has made clear that Moscow must accept his demands, saying that if Kiev does not want to resolve the dispute diplomatically, Russia will achieve its goals in Ukraine by force.

Many Ukrainians who spoke to Reuters in Kiev on Monday expressed doubts about the prospects for a lasting peace.

“Putin doesn’t need land; he doesn’t need Donbas; he wants to destroy Ukrainians. He’s destroying us as a nation,” said Nadiia Yevtushenko, a 57-year-old Kiev resident.

(Moscow newsroom Additional reporting by Olena Harmash, Yurii Kovalenko and Andrii Pryimachenko in Kiev, Andrea Shalal in Palm Beach, Florida and Gram Slattery in Washington, Writing by Timothy Heritage, Editing by Alexandra Hudson)