US, Ukraine ‘a lot closer’ on peace deal, Donald Trump says
Zelensky arrived at Mar-a-Lago early on Sunday afternoon (early Monday AEDT) as Russian airstrikes increased pressure on Kiev.
Russia hit Ukraine’s capital and other parts of Ukraine with hundreds of missiles and drones on Saturday, knocking out electricity and heat in parts of Kiev. Zelensky described the weekend attacks as Russia’s response to U.S.-brokered peace efforts, but Trump said he believed Putin and Zelensky were serious about peace.
The US president said he would call Putin again after his meeting with Zelensky.
Zelensky had previously told reporters that he planned to discuss with Trump the fate of the disputed Donbas region, as well as the future of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and other issues.
Russia demands more advances on the battlefield
Putin said on Saturday that Moscow would continue the war if Kiev did not seek a quick peace. Russia has made steady progress on the battlefield in recent months, taking control of several more settlements on Sunday.
Although Kiev and Washington have agreed on many issues, the issue of which region will be transferred to Russia is still unresolved. While Moscow insists on taking all of Donbas, Kiev wants the map to be frozen at current battle lines.
Seeking a compromise, the United States has proposed creating a free economic zone if Ukraine leaves the region, but it remains unclear how this zone would function in practical terms.
US negotiators also proposed joint control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Power line repairs had begun there following another local ceasefire brokered by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the agency said Sunday.
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Russia controls all of Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, and since invading Ukraine nearly four years ago, it has seized control of about 12 percent of its territory, including about 90 percent of Donbas, 75 percent of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, and slivers of the Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions, according to Russian estimates.
Putin said on December 19 that a peace deal should be based on the conditions he had set in 2024: Ukraine’s withdrawal from all Donbas, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions, and Kiev’s formal abandonment of its goal of joining NATO.
Zelensky’s past encounters with Trump have not always gone smoothly, but the latest meeting came after weeks of diplomatic efforts. European allies, although at times left out of the loop, have stepped up efforts to outline a postwar security guarantee for Kiev that the United States would support.
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Zelensky said that he had a detailed phone conversation with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer before his visit to Mar-a-Lago. At some point during the meeting in Florida, Trump and Zelensky will have a phone call with European leaders, Trump said.
The 20-item plan was created based on the Russia-led 28-item plan, which emerged from meetings between US special envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Russian special envoy Kirill Dmitriev and was made public in November.
In later talks between Ukrainian officials and US negotiators, a Kiev-friendly 20-point plan emerged.
Reuters
