<\/p>\n
Volodymyr Zelenskyy is to travel to the US for a planned meeting with Donald Trump on Sunday, as Washington continues to push for a possible peace deal between Kyiv and Moscow<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Ukrainian president said the visit would take place at a location in Florida \u2013 widely expected to be Trump\u2019s Mar-a-Lago resort \u2013 in what would be the latest development in a diplomatic push that began in November with the circulation of a 28-point US plan shaped with input from Russian officials.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are not losing a single day. We have agreed on a meeting at the highest level \u2013 with President Trump in the near future,\u201d Zelenskyy wrote in a post on X on Friday, adding that \u201ca lot can be decided before the New Year\u201d.<\/p>\n Zelenskyy later told journalists the high-stakes meeting with Trump was planned for Sunday and would focus on some of the most sensitive parts of the peace talks, including Ukrainian security guarantees<\/a> and reconstruction.<\/p>\n \u201cThis meeting is specifically intended to refine things as much as we possibly can,\u201d Zelenskyy said.<\/p>\n He added that the proposed 20-point peace plan was \u201c90% ready\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cOur goal is to bring everything to 100%,\u201d Zelenskyy said. He later added: \u201cAs of today, our teams \u2013 the Ukrainian and American negotiating teams \u2013 have made significant progress.\u201d<\/p>\n The plan is considered an updated version of an earlier 28-point document agreed several weeks ago between the US envoys and Russian officials, a proposal widely viewed as skewed towards the Kremlin\u2019s demands. Ukraine<\/a> has pushed for security guarantees modelled on Nato\u2019s Article 5 mutual defence pledge under any proposed peace deal with Russia, though it remains unclear whether Moscow would accept such terms.<\/p>\n \u201cRussia constantly looks for reasons not to agree\u201d to the peace proposals, Zelenskyy told reporters.<\/p>\n In an interview with Politico<\/a> on Friday, Trump said he anticipated a \u201cgood\u201d meeting with the Ukrainian leader, though he offered no endorsement of Zelenskyy\u2019s plan.<\/p>\n \u201cHe doesn\u2019t have anything until I approve it,\u201d Trump told the news website. \u201cSo we\u2019ll see what he\u2019s got.\u201d<\/p>\n The announcement follows a burst of diplomatic activity<\/a> last weekend in Miami, where Trump\u2019s envoy Steve Witkoff met separately with Russian and Ukrainian representatives, as well as Trump\u2019s son-in-law Jared Kushner.<\/p>\n US officials described the discussions as \u201cconstructive\u201d, though Moscow has played down expectations of progress and there are few signs that Vladimir Putin is prepared to soften his maximalist demands to end the full-scale invasion. Trump in the interview with Politico said he expected to speak with Putin \u201csoon, as much as I want\u201d.<\/p>\n At a closed-door meeting with Russia\u2019s business elite on Wednesday evening, the Russian president reportedly reiterated his demand that Ukraine hand over the entire eastern Donbas region as part of any peace deal.<\/p>\n According to Kommersant, one of Russia\u2019s best-connected newspapers, Putin also indicated openness to a limited territorial exchange with Ukraine, with Moscow potentially exchanging small areas of land Russian forces occupy in Ukraine\u2019s northern Kharkiv and southern Zaporizhzhia regions.<\/p>\n Zelenskyy has previously said Ukraine would be open to withdrawing \u201cheavy forces\u201d from parts of Donbas it still controls, but only if Russia mirrored the move as part of a US-backed initiative to create a \u201cfree economic zone\u201d in the region.<\/p>\n It remains highly uncertain that Moscow would accept either a suggested demilitarised buffer zone or a withdrawal of its forces, even as other sticking points remain, including control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant that Kyiv says should be jointly managed by the US and Ukraine.<\/p>\n On Friday, the Kremlin said Putin\u2019s top foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, had held a call with the US administration after Moscow received an updated US proposal on a potential peace deal, although there were no signs that a breakthrough had been reached.<\/p>\n Russia has repeatedly said it was prepared to continue fighting in Ukraine if no peace deal were reached, saying it was confident it could achieve its war aims through military means.<\/p>\n Yet while Moscow has made slow, grinding progress<\/a> on the battlefield, Ukrainian forces have in recent days pushed Russian troops out of the city of Kupiansk<\/a> in the Kharkiv region.<\/p>\n It marked a rare successful Ukrainian counteroffensive, prompting frustration among pro-war Russian bloggers over what many described as overly upbeat and unrealistic battlefield briefings.<\/p>\n \u201cOn the Kupyansk front, large-scale territorial losses have come to light, caused by the systematic submission of false reports that exaggerated the Russian armed forces\u2019 successes in the battle for Kupyansk and surrounding settlements,\u201d the popular Telegram channel Rybar, which has close links to the defence ministry, wrote.<\/p>\n In late November, senior Russian generals briefed Putin that Russian troops had \u201ccompleted the liberation of Kupyansk\u201d, prompting Zelenskyy to travel to the city\u2019s outskirts to \u201cshow the world that Putin is lying\u201d.<\/p>\n