Trump says Ukraine and Russia are 'closer than ever' to peace after
talks with Zelenskyy
[December 29, 2025]
By WILL WEISSERT, SEUNG MIN KIM and ELISE MORTON
PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump on Sunday insisted
Ukraine and Russia are “closer than ever before” to a peace deal as he
hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at his Florida resort,
but he acknowledged the negotiations are complex and could still break
down, leaving the war dragging on for years.
The president’s statements came after the leaders met for talks
following what Trump said was an “excellent,” two-and-a-half-hour phone
conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose invasion of
Ukraine launched the war nearly four years ago. Trump insisted he
believed Putin still wants peace, even as Russia launched another round
of attacks on Ukraine while Zelenskyy flew to the United States for the
latest round of negotiations.
“Russia wants to see Ukraine succeed,” Trump said during a late
afternoon news conference as he stood with Zelenskyy after their
meeting. He repeatedly praised his counterpart as “brave.”
Trump and Zelenskyy both acknowledged thorny issues remain, including
whether Russia can keep Ukrainian territory it controls, as well as
security guarantees for Ukraine to ensure it's not invaded again in the
future. After their discussion, they called a wide group of European
leaders, including Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European
Commission, and the leaders of Finland, France, Germany, the United
Kingdom and Poland.
Zelenskyy said Trump had agreed to host European leaders again, possibly
at the White House, sometime in January. Trump said the meeting could be
in Washington or “someplace.”
Zelenskyy thanked Trump for his work. “Ukraine is ready for peace,” he
said.
Trump and Putin will speak again
Trump said he'd follow the meeting with another call to Putin. Earlier
Sunday, Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said the
Trump-Putin call was initiated by the U.S. side and was “friendly,
benevolent and businesslike.” Ushakov said Trump and Putin agreed to
speak again “promptly” after Trump’s meeting with Zelenskyy.
But Ushakov added that a “bold, responsible, political decision is
needed from Kyiv” on the fiercely contested Donbas region in eastern
Ukraine and other matters in dispute for there to be a “complete
cessation” of hostilities.
Both leaders identified deciding the future of the Donbas region as a
major sticking point.
Trump said the parties were inching closer to agreement. “That's a very
tough issue but one that I think will get resolved,” he said.
Zelenskyy said: “Our attitude is very clear. That's why President Trump
said this is a very tough question and, of course, we have with Russia
different positions on it.”
Trump said, however, that he still believes Putin is “very serious”
about ending the war, even as Russia continued striking targets in
Ukraine as Zelenskyy traveled to the U.S. Trump said, “I believe Ukraine
has made some very strong attacks also.”
He held out the possibility that negotiations could still fall apart.
“In a few weeks, we will know one way or the other, I think," Trump
said. "We could have something where one item that you’re not thinking
about is a big item, breaks it up. Look, it’s been a very difficult
negotiation. Very detailed.”
Trump and Zelenskyy's sit-down underscored the apparent progress made by
Trump’s top negotiators in recent weeks as the sides traded draft peace
plans to end the fighting. Zelenskyy told reporters Friday that the
20-point draft proposal negotiators have discussed is “about 90% ready”
— echoing a figure, and the optimism, that U.S. officials conveyed when
Trump’s chief negotiators met with Zelenskyy in Berlin this month.
During the recent talks, the U.S. agreed to offer certain security
guarantees to Ukraine similar to those offered to other members of NATO.
The proposal came as Zelenskyy said he was prepared to drop his
country’s bid to join the security alliance if Ukraine received
NATO-like protection that would be designed to safeguard it against
future Russian attacks.
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President Donald Trump greets Ukraine's President Volodymyr
Zelenskyy at his Mar-a-Lago club, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in Palm
Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
‘Intensive’ weeks ahead
Zelenskyy also spoke on Christmas Day with U.S. special envoy Steve
Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. The Ukrainian leader
said they discussed “certain substantive details" and cautioned
“there is still work to be done on sensitive issues” and “the weeks
ahead may also be intensive.”
The U.S. president has been working to end the war in Ukraine for
much of his first year back in office, showing irritation with both
Zelenskyy and Putin while publicly acknowledging the difficulty of
ending the conflict. Gone are the days when, as a candidate in 2024,
he boasted that he could resolve the fighting in a day. Indeed, on
Sunday, Trump referred multiple times to the complexity of the
negotiations.
After hosting Zelenskyy at the White House in October, Trump
demanded that both Russia and Ukraine halt fighting and “stop at the
battle line,” implying that Moscow should be able to keep the
territory it has seized from Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said last week that he would be willing to withdraw troops
from Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland as part of a plan to end
the war, if Russia also pulls back and the area becomes a
demilitarized zone monitored by international forces.
Putin wants Russian gains kept, and more
Putin has publicly said he wants all the areas in four key regions
that have been captured by his forces, as well as the Crimean
Peninsula, illegally annexed in 2014, to be recognized as Russian
territory. He also has insisted that Ukraine withdraw from some
areas in eastern Ukraine that Moscow’s forces haven’t captured. Kyiv
has publicly rejected all those demands.
The Kremlin also wants Ukraine to abandon its bid to join NATO. It
warned that it wouldn’t accept the deployment of any troops from
members of the military alliance and would view them as a
“legitimate target.”
Putin also has said Ukraine must limit the size of its army and give
official status to the Russian language, demands he has made from
the outset of the conflict.
Ushakov told the business daily Kommersant this month that Russian
police and national guard would stay in parts of Donetsk -– one of
the two major areas, along with Luhansk, that make up the Donbas
region — even if they become a demilitarized zone under a
prospective peace plan.
Ushakov cautioned that trying to reach a compromise could take a
long time. He said U.S. proposals that took into account Russian
demands had been “worsened” by alterations proposed by Ukraine and
its European allies.
Trump has been somewhat receptive to Putin’s demands, arguing that
the Russian president can be persuaded to end the war if Kyiv agrees
to cede Ukrainian land in the Donbas region and if Western powers
offer economic incentives to bring Russia back into the global
economy.
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Kim reported from Washington and Morton from London. Associated
Press writers Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Nicholas Riccardi in Denver and
Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.
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