US president Donald Trump has said Volodymyr Zelenskiy “isn’t ready” to sign off on a US-authored peace proposal aimed at ending the war between Russia and Ukraine, at the end of three days of talks between Washington and Kyiv in Florida.
“I’m a little bit disappointed that president Zelenskiy hasn’t yet read the proposal, that was as of a few hours ago. His people love it, but he hasn’t,” Mr Trump claimed as he spoke with reporters on Sunday night.
Days of negotiations between US and Ukrainian officials ended on Saturday without an apparent breakthrough, with Mr Zelenskiy calling the discussions “constructive, although not easy”.
His comments come as Mr Zelenskiy is set to meet UK prime minister Keir Starmer and the leaders of France and Germany – Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz – in London on Monday, with discussions set to focus on the continuing talks between the US and Ukraine.
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Mr Starmer has repeatedly stressed that Ukraine must determine its own future, and said a European peacekeeping force would play a “vital role” in guaranteeing the country’s security.
Off the back of the Trump-backed Gaza ceasefire, the US has been working to push through a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. US officials claim they are in the final stage of reaching an agreement, but there is little sign that either Ukraine or Russia is willing to sign the framework deal drawn up by Mr Trump’s negotiating team.
In his comments on Sunday, Mr Trump said “Russia is, I believe, fine with [the deal], but I’m not sure that Zelenskiy’s fine with it. His people love it. But he isn’t ready.”
Russian president Vladimir Putin has not publicly expressed approval for the White House plan and last week said that aspects of Trump’s proposal were unworkable. US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Mr Putin at the Kremlin last week but failed to achieve an obvious breakthrough.
The US plan has been through several drafts since it first emerged in November, with criticism it was too soft on Russia.
Despite efforts from Mr Trump and his team to push through a deal, progress in the peace talks has been slow, with disputes over security guarantees for Kyiv and the status of Russian-occupied territory still unresolved.
“The American representatives know the basic Ukrainian positions,” Mr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address on Sunday.
Mr Trump has had a hot-and-cold relationship with Mr Zelenskiy since re-entering the White House, and has repeatedly urged the Ukrainians to cede land to Russia to bring an end to a conflict he says has cost far too many lives.
Mr Zelenskiy said on Saturday he had a “substantive phone call” with the American officials engaged in the talks with a Ukrainian delegation in Florida. He said he had been given an update over the phone by US and Ukrainian officials at the talks.
“Ukraine is determined to keep working in good faith with the American side to genuinely achieve peace,” Mr Zelenskiy wrote on social media.
Mr Trump’s criticism of Mr Zelenskiy came as Russia on Sunday welcomed the Trump administration’s new national security strategy. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the updated strategic document, which spells out the administration’s core foreign policy interests, was largely in line with Moscow’s vision.
The document released Friday by the White House said the US wants to improve its relationship with Russia after years of Moscow being treated as a global pariah. The document was also highly critical of European countries, and said that the Continent was at risk of “civilisational erasure”.
Mr Trump’s outgoing Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, said at a defence forum on Saturday that the administration’s efforts to end the war were in “the last 10 metres”. He said there were two outstanding issues: territory and the fate of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Mr Kellogg is seen as among the US officials most sympathetic to Kyiv’s position, but is due to leave his role in January. He was present at the Florida talks.
Many others in Mr Trump’s orbit, including Mr Witkoff, have been much more open to adopting Russian positions. Mr Trump’s son, Donald Jr, said at a forum in Doha on Sunday that Mr Zelenskiy was deliberately continuing the conflict for fear of losing power if it ended. He said the US would not be “the idiot with the chequebook” any longer. – Guardian
