Trump and Zelensky speak after peace plan meeting

Donald Trump has celebrated the success of his highly anticipated peace talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, revealing they are 'very close' to striking an agreement on all but 'one or two thorny issues.'

The President had earlier welcomed Zelensky to his Mar-a-Lago estate with open arms when he arrived in Florida on Sunday to discuss a 20-point plan with Trump which could end almost four years of war between Russia and Ukraine.

The duo admitted afterwards that they couldn't find middle ground on some of the most difficult issues, including future ownership of the Donbas region, Ukrainian territory which it has been fighting to protect throughout the war.

'This is very difficult question,' Zelensky said when asked about Donbas. 

'You know our position, so it's I mean this, we have to respect our law and our people. We respect the territory which we control. And of course, the our attitude is very clear.'

Trump countered that 'some of that land has been taken' and 'may be up for grabs, but it may be taken over the next period of the number of months.

'They have been very brave. They fought very hard and continue to fight very hard and do tremendous damage, but Russia would like to see it end, and Ukraine would like to see it end,' he said.

'We could be very close. There are one or two very thorny issues, very tough issues, but I think we're doing very well. We've made a lot of progress today, but really we've made it over the last month. This is not a one day process deal, this very complicated stuff.' 

Trump was asked about what the timeline for the end of the war could look like, but noted there are still several hurdles on the road to peace. 

'In a few weeks, we will know one way or the other,' he said. 'We could have something where one item that you're not thinking about is a big item and breaks it up.'

He admitted 'it has been a very difficult negotiation, very detailed.' 

But he offered a grim dose of reality for the future if the deal falls through, warning: 'They keep fighting and they keep dying.' 

Trump had initially hoped when returning to the White House in January that ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict would be a straightforward and quick win for his administration, and has expressed frustration with both Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin at various stages throughout the negotiations.

America's 20-point plan includes security guarantees to protect Ukraine from future invasions by Moscow - primarily through Ukrainian membership in the EU, and maintaining a peacetime army of 800,000 troops funded by Western allies. 

However, Trump snapped at a reporter who asked about the security guarantees moments before he went into the meeting with Zelensky. 

'What a stupid question,' he fumed. 'Nobody even knows what the security agreement is going to state. There will be a security agreement. It will be a strong agreement. The European nations are very much involved.'

Writing on Truth Social ahead of the brief press conference, Trump said he also had a 'very good and very productive telephone call with President Putin of Russia', and at Mar-a-Lago, he said he was in 'the final stages of talking' with each president. 

'We're in final stages of talking... It will either end, or it's going to go on for a long time and millions of additional people are going to be killed. Nobody wants that,' he said.

Trump added that he believes Putin is ready for a ceasefire. 'There are too many people dying, and I think both presidents want to make a deal,' he said. 

'I do believe that we have the makings of a deal that is fit for Ukraine, fit for everybody,' Trump continued. 'There is nothing more important. I've settled eight wars, and this is the most difficult one.' 

But at his press conference alongside Zelensky, Trump refused to go into any further detail about his discussions with Putin.

'We weren't talking about the weather, we weren't talking about what a beautiful day it is in Palm Beach, Florida,' Trump said.

'Russia wants to see Ukraine succeed. It sounds a little strange but President Putin was very generous in his feeling toward Ukraine succeeding, including supplying energy, electricity and other things at very low prices.' 

Zelensky had earlier acknowledged the most difficult points to reconcile will be the fate of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, and who will take control of a Russian-occupied nuclear power plant.   

It comes just a day after Russia launched a barrage of missiles on Kyiv, killing at least one person and injuring 20 more, per the mayor of the Ukrainian capital.

Writing on X on Saturday ahead of the summit, Zelensky said: 'For us, priority number one – or the only priority – is ending the war. For us, the priority is peace. 

'We need to be strong at the negotiating table. To be strong, we need the support of the world: Europe and the United States.'

Zelensky said his country needs more air defenses, weaponry and money. 

'If the whole world – Europe and America – is on our side, together we will stop Putin,' he wrote. 

Zelensky added that he started the day with a 'detailed phone call' with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, where they discussed 'preparations for the meeting with President Trump' and 'consequences of Russian strikes'. 

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called Europe 'the main obstacle to peace' while praising Trump's efforts to secure peace. 

'After the change of administration in the US, Europe and the European Union have become the main obstacle to peace,' Lavrov said in an interview with the Russian newswire Tass published on Sunday.

Trump told Politico he thought their Palm Beach meeting would go well, but he added that 'Zelensky doesn't have anything until I approve it.'

'We'll see what he's got,' the US president said in the comment published Friday. 

The engagement was the sixth meeting between Trump and Zelensky this year, with their relations improving since the fiery Oval Office feud on February 28. 

The first meeting degenerated into a heated argument, with Trump and Vice President JD Vance accusing Zelensky of failing to show gratitude for US support.

Earlier in December, the US President's oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., also told reporters that his father may walk away from supporting Ukraine if Kyiv refuses to engage with Moscow at the negotiating table. 

Last month, Trump expressed a desire to end the war in order to engage in business deals with Putin, hoping to bring billions of dollars from the Russian economy into the US.  

A report in The Wall Street Journal details how Trump's team - including his son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff - have been negotiating with Russia on how to 'bring their $2trillion economy in from the cold'.

Witkoff reportedly hosted Kirill Dmitriev - Putin's 'handpicked' negotiator - and Kushner at a waterfront Miami Beach estate to draw up a plan to end the war, while also ensuring American businesses beat their European counterparts to making money once the conflict ended.

Dmitriev is said to have pushed for the $300billion of Russian central bank assets frozen in Europe to be used for joint US-Russian investment projects, and a 'US-led reconstruction' of Ukraine.

In a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Saturday, Zelensky said the key to peace is 'pressure on Russia and sufficient, strong support for Ukraine'.

To that end, Carney announced $2.5billion Canadian (US$1.8billion) more in economic assistance from his government to help Ukraine rebuild.

Denouncing the 'barbarism' of Russia's latest attacks on Kyiv, Carney credited both Zelensky and Trump with creating the conditions for a 'just and lasting peace' at a crucial moment.

Trump and Zelensky sitting down face-to-face underscored the apparent progress made by Trump's top negotiators in recent weeks as the sides traded draft peace plans and continued to shape a proposal to end the fighting. 

Zelensky told reporters Friday that the 20-point draft proposal negotiators have discussed is 'about 90 per cent ready' — echoing a figure, and the optimism, that US officials conveyed when Trump's chief negotiators met with Zelensky in Berlin earlier this month.