Trump says ‘thorny’ issues remain on Ukraine peace talks
Donald Trump has said progress towards a deal to end the war in Ukraine was made in a meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but the US president warned that several “thorny” issues remained.
Speaking soon after the meeting at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida ended, the US president said he had a “terrific meeting” with Zelenskyy and “discussed a lot of things”.
“I do think we are getting a lot closer” to a peace deal, Trump added. The US president said he and Zelenskyy had spoken to European leaders including UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron since the meeting concluded.
Zelenskyy said he and Trump discussed “all aspects” of the peace plan, adding that the military dimension was “100 per cent agreed” while the plan generally is “90 per cent agreed”.
However, Trump cautioned that there were still “thorny” issues remaining, saying that “the word agreed is too strong, but we are getting closer”.
Trump said the issue surrounding a possible demilitarised zone in the Donbas region remained “unresolved”.
Asked about what specifically the US offered Ukraine in the way of security guarantees, a crucial element for Kyiv in agreeing to a deal, Trump said he wants to “work with Europe” which will “take over a big part of it” but gave no specifics.
Trump spoke with Russian leader Vladimir Putin ahead of the meeting in what the US president described as a “good and very productive” telephone call.
The talks marked the culmination of weeks of intense diplomacy to end Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Zelenskyy told European leaders by phone on Saturday that he did not expect Russia to drop its maximalist demands or agree to Ukraine’s proposed plan, but wanted the US to shift its focus to pressuring Russia, according to two people briefed on their call.
Russia has already indicated it will reject any amendments Ukraine proposes to Trump’s initial plan, which was drafted in the autumn with significant input from Moscow.
On Sunday Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, claimed Kyiv was trying to evade “constructive negotiations” on a way to end the war.
Ukraine and US delegations to meet next week to continue talks
Rustem Umerov, Ukraine’s lead negotiator in the peace talks, said the sides had “discussed all aspects of the peace framework and achieved significant results” at Mar-a-Lago.
“We also discussed the sequence of further actions,” he said in a post on Telegram. “We agree that security guarantees are key to achieving lasting peace, and our teams will continue to work on all aspects.”
He said the Ukrainian side had also agreed that it would “meet next week to finalise all discussed issues” with the US delegation.
He added: “We also agreed with President Trump that he will host Ukrainian and European leaders in Washington in January.”
Comment: No great progress as biggest issues remain unresolved
It does not sound like Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a great deal of progress in their Mar-a-Lago talks.
Zelenskyy said that a US-Ukrainian peace proposal was still “90 per cent” agreed, the same as before their meeting. Trump said differences over territory between Ukraine and Russia — the most contentious remaining issue — were “unresolved”.
Trump was more supportive of Zelenskyy in the press conference than in his earlier remarks, describing their meeting as “terrific” and hailing the progress that Ukrainian and US negotiators have made over the past month.
Crucially, there were no cross words between the two men, at least in public. That will be deemed a success in Kyiv. But the Ukrainian president still faces an uphill battle in persuading his US counterpart that Vladimir Putin is the real obstacle to peace and that increased US pressure on Russia is needed to change the Kremlin’s calculus about the war.