Vladimir Zelensky said he will meet US President Donald Trump in Florida over the weekend as talks continue to end a full-scale war with Russia.
Zelensky said he expected the meeting to take place on Sunday and focus on a 20-point peace plan brokered by the United States, as well as individual proposals for U.S. security guarantees.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin says a senior aide to President Vladimir Putin held further talks with U.S. officials by phone and that Russia has pledged to continue negotiations.
Russia spoke of “slow but steady progress” in the talks, but did not comment on Zelensky's proposal to withdraw troops from the eastern Donbass if Russia also retreats.
Ukraine has sought US guarantees as part of the deal, and Zelensky has suggested that a demilitarized “free economic zone” is a potential option for areas of Donbass that Russia has failed to seize by force.
On Friday, Zelensky said he had received an update on the latest technical talks from his senior negotiator Rustem Umerov.
He wrote on social networks: “We are not wasting a day. We have agreed on a meeting at the highest level – with President Trump in the near future. A lot can be decided before the new year.”
The meeting between Zelensky and Trump at the White House in February, the first since the US president returned to office, came to a hostile shouting matchalthough their last meeting at the White House in October was much more friendly.
Ukrainian soldiers were photographed enjoying a Christmas meal together as fighting continued on the front lines. [Reuters]
Confirmation of the planned high-level talks came after the Ukrainian leader said he spoke for an hour by phone with Trump's chief negotiators, special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner, on Christmas Day.
He said that the last round of negotiations generated “new ideas” on how to end the warand described it as “a really good conversation.”
The White House has proposed creating a demilitarized zone in eastern Ukraine, where both sides agree not to station troops. This is a compromise that will avoid resolving the intractable issue of legal ownership of the disputed territory.
On Wednesday, Zelensky made it clear that if Ukraine retreats 40 km (25 miles) from the front line in the east to create an economic zone, Russia would have to do the same with Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine's industrial heartland in the Donbass.
Ukraine secured a number of changes to an earlier draft of the 28-point plan, which was formulated by Steve Witkoff, but was widely seen as favorable to Russia.
Zelensky told reporters on Friday that weekend talks in Florida would focus on several documents, including US security guarantees and a separate economic agreement.
However, Zelensky has repeatedly stated that the issue of territory has proven to be the most difficult to resolve, along with the future of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant.
The White House has proposed that Ukraine and Russia share the energy generated by Europe's largest power plant. It is currently controlled by Russian troops.
[BBC]
Russia is unlikely to agree with a number of points in the updated US plan, especially with its territorial proposals. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused “groups of states, primarily Western European ones” of seeking to disrupt the diplomatic progress achieved.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that further talks would take place between the Russian and American delegations following a meeting last weekend between American negotiators and a delegation led by Putin envoy Kirill Dmitriev in Miami.
Another close aide, Yuri Ushakov, has held further talks with the White House by phone, and more are planned, Peskov added.
Zelensky outlined the latest version of the plan this week for the first time since the original 28-point plan was leaked online in November.
The latest proposals would commit the US and Europe to provide security guarantees modeled on NATO's Article 5, obliging allies to provide military support if Russia launches a new invasion.
The agreement also calls for keeping the size of the Ukrainian military at 800,000, a level the Kremlin has demanded be reduced.
Meanwhile, fighting and air strikes continue. Ukrainian officials reported at least four deaths in the strikes since the morning of December 25, and the air force said it had shot down 73 drones overnight.
Russia also said it shot down missiles overnight, including British Storm Shadow missiles. The Ukrainian Air Force said it struck oil and gas refineries in Rostov and Krasnodar.
