Trump says progress has been made in Ukraine negotiations, but ‘thorny issues’ remain

Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky said progress had been made toward ending the war in Ukraine at talks in Florida, but failed to reach a breakthrough on some of the thorniest issues.

U.S. and Ukrainian leaders met Sunday at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home to discuss a revised deal. peace planseveral key elements of which Russia has already rejected.

On Monday, Zelensky said the United States had offered security guarantees for a period of 15 years. Trump said Sunday that agreement on that was “close to 95 percent.”

But little has been said about the future of Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, which Russia seeks to control in its entirety.

Moscow currently controls about 75% of the Donetsk region and about 99% of the neighboring Luhansk region. The two regions are known collectively as Donbass.

Speaking to reporters after the negotiations, Trump said a deal on Donbas remained “unresolved, but it’s getting a lot closer.”

His fate has posed a major obstacle throughout the negotiations, with Russia still unwilling to compromise on its goal of taking full control of the country.

On Monday, the Kremlin again said Ukraine should withdraw its troops from the part of Donbass that kyiv still controls. Ukraine has insisted that the region could become a free economic zone monitored by Ukrainian forces – but Zelensky stressed that any discussions on this should include the Ukrainian people, the Reuters news agency reported.

The US president has repeatedly changed his own position on Ukraine’s lost territories, and in September he stunned observers by suggesting that Ukraine might be able to take them back. He then reversed his trajectory.

Speaking to reporters at Mar-a-Lago after Sunday’s talks, Zelensky reiterated his belief that a comprehensive peace deal was 90 percent achieved, a figure he had given in the days before his visit.

Both leaders also indicated that progress had been made on a key sticking point: security guarantees for Ukraine.

Zelensky later said that the United States had offered security guarantees for an extendable period of 15 years, but that kyiv wanted the option of having them for up to 50 years. He said he hoped the guarantees would begin the moment kyiv signed a peace deal, Reuters reported.

The United States has not yet commented on the timeline. On Sunday, Trump said a deal was close and that he expected European countries to “take on a lot of responsibility” for that effort with U.S. support.

Trump, meanwhile, raised the possibility of trilateral negotiations between the United States, Russia and Ukraine, saying it could happen “at the right time.”

While the US president is keen to add the war between Ukraine and Russia to the list of conflicts he claims to have ended, he warned that stopping or abandoning negotiations that are going “very poorly” could mean a continuation of the war.

Zelensky suggested that Ukrainian officials could meet at the White House in January, potentially alongside European leaders, as the U.S. and Ukrainian delegations finalize plans for further negotiations.

In a phone call with European allies after the meeting, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen praised “good progress” in the Florida talks, while reinforcing the need for “ironclad security guarantees” for Ukraine.

French President Emmanuel Macron also said kyiv’s allies would meet in Paris next month to discuss security guarantees.

Zelensky later said a peace plan should be put to a referendum in Ukraine, saying a 60-day ceasefire would be necessary for such a vote to take place.

However, Russia does not support a temporary ceasefire – an issue that was reportedly raised during a call between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin ahead of Sunday’s meeting.

Yuri Ushakov, Russia’s former ambassador to the United States, said Trump listened to the Kremlin’s assessment of the proposals and that both presidents left the call united in their belief that a temporary ceasefire proposed by the EU and Ukraine would prolong the conflict.

The American president, who made the call, acknowledged that Moscow had little interest in a ceasefire that would allow Ukraine to organize a referendum.

“I understand this position,” he added.

Few further details were provided, although Trump said he believed the Russian leader “wants Ukraine to succeed.”

Meanwhile, strikes continued overnight in Ukraine.

kyiv said 25 airstrikes were carried out by Russia on Sunday, of which 21 were shot down.

The Russian Defense Ministry said 89 drones were intercepted on Sunday evening, the vast majority of them over the Bryansk region.