Kyiv — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on Friday that he plans to hold talks with U.S. President Donald Trump in Florida this weekend.
Speaking to reporters, Zelenskyy said the meeting, scheduled for Sunday, December 28, will focus on security guarantees for Ukraine. He noted that a 20-point peace plan currently under negotiation is approximately 90 percent complete.
The upcoming discussion forms part of broader U.S.-led efforts to resolve the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which entered its fourth year since Russia’s full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022. These initiatives have encountered significant obstacles due to irreconcilable positions between Moscow and Kyiv.
Zelenskyy’s statement followed his disclosure on Thursday of a productive discussion with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Friday that Russian officials have maintained contacts with U.S. counterparts, pointing to a recent meeting between Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev and American representatives in Florida. Peskov said the sides agreed to sustain the dialogue.
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Trump has been actively pursuing diplomatic avenues to halt the war, though progress remains hampered by stark differences in demands from both sides.
Earlier this week, on Tuesday, Zelenskyy indicated openness to withdrawing Ukrainian forces from the eastern Donbas region in exchange for a Russian pullback and the establishment of an internationally monitored demilitarized zone.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova described peace negotiations on Thursday as showing slow but steady advancement. However, Moscow has shown no willingness to retreat from occupied territories and continues to demand that Ukraine cede control over remaining areas in the Donbas, where Russia holds most of Luhansk and around 70 percent of Donetsk — a condition Kyiv has firmly rejected.
On the military front, Ukrainian officials reported casualties from Russian attacks on Friday, including one death and three injuries in Zaporizhzhia from a guided bomb, six wounded in a missile strike on Uman, and power outages in Mykolaiv following drone assaults. Drone strikes also damaged energy and port facilities in Odesa.
Ukraine’s military claimed a successful strike on Thursday against Russia’s Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery in Rostov region using U.K.-supplied Storm Shadow missiles, with multiple explosions reported. A regional Russian official confirmed a firefighter was injured while battling the resulting blaze.
Such Ukrainian operations target Russia’s oil revenues funding the war, while Moscow seeks to disrupt Ukraine’s energy infrastructure ahead of winter.
