Zelenskyy to meet Trump as efforts to end Russia-Ukraine war remain elusive : NPR

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Donald Trump will host his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday to try to broker a peace deal that would end the nearly four-year war that began with Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

They will meet at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's private club in Palm Beach, Florida, where the US president vacations and his agenda is mostly filled with daily golf games. Zelensky said they planned to discuss security and economic agreements and he would raise “territorial issues” as Moscow and Kyiv remain deeply divided over the fate of the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine.

In the days leading up to the meeting, Russia stepped up attacks on the Ukrainian capital, using missiles and drones to attack Kyiv and trying to increase pressure on Zelensky.

“Ukraine is ready to do everything possible to stop this war,” Zelensky wrote on Saturday on X. “We must be strong at the negotiating table.”

In response to the attacks, he wrote: “We want peace, and Russia is demonstrating a desire to continue the war. If the whole world – Europe and America – is on our side, together we will stop it.” Russian President Vladimir Putin.

At 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 sufficient, strong support for Ukraine.” To that end, Carney announced C$2.5 billion ($1.8 billion) in economic aid from his government to help Ukraine recover.

Condemning the “barbarity” of Russia's latest attacks on Kyiv, Carney credited Zelensky and Trump for creating the conditions for a “just and lasting peace” at a crucial moment.

The face-to-face meeting between Trump and Zelensky also underscored the apparent progress made by Trump's top negotiators in recent weeks as the two sides exchanged draft peace plans and continued to formulate proposals to end the fighting. Zelensky told reporters on Friday that the draft 20-point proposal negotiators were discussing is “about 90% ready,” echoing the figure and optimism U.S. officials expressed when Trump's chief negotiators met with Zelensky in Berlin earlier this month.

During recent negotiations, the United States agreed to provide Ukraine with certain security guarantees similar to those offered to other NATO members. The proposal comes after Zelensky said he was willing to give up his country's bid to join the security alliance if Ukraine received NATO-like protection to protect it from future Russian attacks.

“Intense” weeks ahead

Zelensky also spoke on Christmas Day with US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law. The Ukrainian leader said in a post on X that they discussed “some significant details of ongoing work” and warned in a follow-up post that “there is still work to be done on sensitive issues” and “the coming weeks could also be tense.”

The US president has worked to end the war in Ukraine for much of his first year in office, showing exasperation with both Zelensky and Putin but publicly acknowledging the difficulty of ending the conflict. Long gone are the days when, as a 2024 candidate, he boasted that he could resolve a conflict in a day.

After receiving Zelensky at the White House in October, Trump demanded that both Russia and Ukraine stop fighting and “stay on the front lines,” implying that Moscow should be able to keep the territory it seized from Ukraine.

Before Sunday's meeting, Zelensky said key issues that remain unresolved in relations between Ukraine and the United States include issues related to territory, the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant and financing for Ukraine's post-war reconstruction. According to him, there are also unresolved technical issues related to security guarantees and monitoring mechanisms.

Ukraine has transferred its position to the United States, Zelensky said, adding that Trump administration officials will transfer it to Russia.

Zelensky also said last week 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 retreated and the area became a demilitarized zone controlled by international forces.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday that the Kremlin had already made contact with the United States.

“It was agreed to continue the dialogue,” he said.

Putin wants to preserve Russia's gains and much more

Putin has publicly said he wants all territories in four key regions captured by his troops, as well as the Crimean Peninsula, illegally annexed in 2014, to be recognized as Russian territory. He also insisted that Ukraine withdraw from some areas in eastern Ukraine that had not been captured by Moscow's forces. Kyiv publicly rejected all these demands.

The Kremlin also wants Ukraine to abandon its bid to join NATO. He warned that he would not allow the deployment of any troops from members of the military alliance and would treat them as a “legitimate target.”

Putin also said Ukraine should limit the size of its army and give official status to the Russian language, demands he has made since the start of the conflict.

Putin's foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov told the business daily Kommersant this month that Russian police and national guards would remain in parts of Donetsk – one of the two main areas, along with Luhansk, that make up the Donbass region – even if they become a demilitarized zone under a promising peace plan.

Ushakov warned that trying to reach a compromise could take a long time. He said the US proposals, which took into account Russia's demands, were “worsened” by changes proposed by Ukraine and its European allies.

Trump has been somewhat receptive to Putin's demands, arguing that the Russian president could be persuaded to end the war if Kyiv agreed to cede Ukrainian lands in the Donbass region and if Western powers offered economic incentives to bring Russia back into the global economy.