President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskiy arrives in Halifax, New South Wales on Saturday, December 27, 2025.
Riley Smith | Canadian Press (AP)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and U.S. President Donald Trump are scheduled to meet in Florida on Sunday to formulate a plan to end the war in Ukraine, but they face disagreements over key issues including territory as Russian air attacks increase pressure on Kiev.
Russia on Saturday attacked the capital and other parts of war-torn Ukraine with hundreds of missiles and drones, cutting off power and heat in parts of the capital. President Zelenskiy called this a Russian response to U.S.-brokered peace efforts.
President Zelenskiy told reporters that during the meeting with President Trump at his official residence in Florida, they will discuss topics such as the fate of the disputed Donbas region in eastern Ukraine and the future of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
The Ukrainian president and his delegation arrived in Florida late Saturday, Ukraine’s Deputy Foreign Minister Serhiy Kislysha told X.
“Good evening, Florida!” Kyslytsya wrote alongside a photo of an aircraft with the U.S. president’s last name on it.
Russia insists on entering the battlefield
Moscow has repeatedly insisted that Ukraine should vacate all of the Donbass, including areas still under its control in Kiev, and Russian officials have objected to other parts of the latest proposal, raising questions about whether Russian President Vladimir Putin will accept any outcome from Sunday’s talks.
President Putin said on Saturday that Russia would continue the war if Kiev did not seek early peace. Russia has made steady advances on the battlefield in recent weeks and months, and on Sunday claimed control of several more settlements.
Ukraine’s president told Axios on Friday that he still hopes to soften the US proposal for Ukrainian troops to completely withdraw from Donbas. If that fails, Zelenskiy said the entire 20-point plan, the result of weeks of negotiations, should be put to a referendum.
Axios said U.S. officials see Zelensky’s willingness to hold a referendum as a major step forward and a sign that he no longer rules out territorial concessions, but that Russia must agree to a 60-day ceasefire to allow Ukraine to prepare and hold a referendum.
Recent polls suggest that Ukrainian voters may also reject the plan.
Kiev residents interviewed by Reuters on Sunday expressed a mix of hope and skepticism about the talks.
“I want this to end, but this is what our side wants,” said Stanislav, a 44-year-old soldier who declined to give his last name. “We have no influence in this situation.”
A face-to-face meeting between President Zelensky and President Trump is scheduled for 1pm (1pm Japan time) after weeks of diplomatic efforts. European allies are stepping up efforts, sometimes under the radar, to delineate Kiev’s postwar security with U.S. support.
President Zelensky wrote in an article for X ahead of the talks that “many things can be decided by the new year” but that peace depends on strong support from Kiev’s partners.
Sticking points across areas
Kiev and the United States have agreed on a number of issues, and Zelenskyy said Friday that the 20-point plan was 90% complete. However, the question of what territory, if any, will be ceded to Russia remains unresolved.
Moscow insists on taking all of Donbass, while Kiev wants to freeze the map on the current front.
The United States has sought a compromise, proposing a free economic zone should Ukraine leave the region, but how that zone would work in practice remains unclear.
The agency also announced on Sunday that it is proposing joint management of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, where repairs to power lines have begun after another local cease-fire brokered by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Zelenskiy, whose previous talks with Trump have not always gone well, is worried along with his European allies that Trump could sell out Ukraine after Russian forces capture 12 to 17 square kilometers (4.6 to 6.6 square miles) of territory per day in 2025, forcing European countries to pay for aid to the ravaged country.
Russia controls all of Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, and Russia estimates it has controlled about 12% of the territory since its invasion of Ukraine nearly four years ago, including about 90% of Donbass, 75% of Zaporizhzhya and Kherson oblasts, and parts of Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts.
President Putin said on December 19 that he believes a peace agreement should be based on conditions set for 2024, namely that Ukraine withdraws from all of the Donbass, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson regions, and that Kyiv formally abandons its goal of joining NATO.
Ukrainian officials and European leaders see the war as an imperial-style land grab by Moscow and have warned that if Russia gets its way in Ukraine, it will one day attack NATO allies.
The 20-point plan emerges from a meeting between U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev, and is an outgrowth of a Russian-led 28-point plan released in November.
Subsequent discussions between Ukrainian officials and U.S. negotiators produced a more Kiev-friendly 20-point plan.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who spoke with Zelensky along with other European leaders on Saturday, said on the X show that their common goal remains a “just and lasting peace” that preserves Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity while strengthening the country’s security and defense capabilities.
Zelenskiy said he would meet with European leaders after his meeting with President Trump.
