West Palm Beach, Florida
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky traded freezing, missile-tormented Kyiv on Sunday for the frescoed eating room at Mar-a-Lago, the place he hoped to achieve President Donald Trump’s sign-off on a revised 20-point peace plan to finish the conflict in his nation.
Emerging after greater than three hours of talks, neither man introduced any main breakthrough in the grinding effort to finish the battle began by Russia in 2022. Both emphasised the method was sophisticated and would take extra time. And Trump, who spoke by cellphone earlier in the day with Russian President Vladimir Putin, nonetheless provided a comparatively sympathetic view of Moscow’s positions.
Yet in contrast to some earlier conferences, Trump praised Zelensky and remained assured that peace was close to.
“I do think we’re getting a lot closer, maybe very close,” the US president stated.
US, Ukrainian and European groups will proceed meeting over the approaching weeks, doubtlessly in Washington, Trump stated. He’s additionally anticipated to talk once more with Putin, who would want to signal on to the phrases of any potential peace deal.
Here are the takeaways from Sunday’s meeting:
Trump, after he shook Zelensky’s hand on the Mar-a-Lago steps, insisted he had no deadline in thoughts for ending the Ukraine conflict.
Yet he additionally appeared to recommend that now — with intensive talks underway led by his envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner — was the ripest to lastly finish the practically four-year conflict.
“I think we’re in the very final stages of talking, and we’re going to see,” Trump stated, including, “It’ll either end or it’s going to go on for a long time, and millions of additional people are going to be killed.”
Trump has been pissed off with the tempo of peace talks and alternates between blaming Zelensky and Putin for the shortcoming to finish the battle. After declaring throughout the 2024 marketing campaign he’d have the ability to resolve the conflict inside a day of taking workplace, he now says it’s more durable than he imagined — in half as a result of he hasn’t been in a position to leverage a heat private relationship with Putin.
Sunday’s meeting, which ended with none main announcement, appeared to underscore the difficulties.
“There are one or two very thorny issues, very tough issues, but I think we’re doing very well,” Trump stated after the meeting. “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 [is] very complicated stuff.”
He provided a well-known timeline for when readability may emerge on whether or not peace is feasible.
“It’s possible it doesn’t happen,” Trump stated of a peace settlement. “In a few weeks, we’ll know one way or another.”
Putin didn’t depart Russia for a meeting in Palm Beach; exterior of his journey to Alaska to meet Trump in August, he hasn’t been to the United States in years.
Yet his bodily absence from Sunday’s talks didn’t imply his presence wasn’t felt. Trump spoke to the Russian chief for greater than an hour earlier than the talks with Zelensky started, in a cellphone name the Kremlin stated the US president requested. Trump additionally stated he would converse with Putin once more after his meeting with Zelensky.
It’s a sample that has disturbed Ukraine’s supporters in the previous: Ahead of meeting Zelensky, Trump hears Putin’s standpoint, and the following meeting goes south. That sequence performed out in October, when — after a name with Putin — Trump declined to provide Ukraine new long-range missiles after beforehand sounding open to the thought.
This time, Trump’s discuss with Putin didn’t preclude a constructive meeting with Zelensky. But Trump nonetheless lauded Putin in one space: how he’s dealt with the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, a key sticking level in the negotiations.
“President Putin is actually working with Ukraine on getting it open,” Trump stated. “It’s a big step, when he’s not bombing that plant.”
Trump stated he nonetheless thought Putin was severe about peace.
“He wants to see it happen. He wants to see it,” he stated. “He told me very strongly, I believe him.”
Heading into the meeting, Zelensky stated 90% of the phrases of the peace plan had been agreed to, echoing a determine US officers have used. Afterward, Zelensky used the identical determine, although Trump stated he didn’t like utilizing percentages.
Still, it’s the remaining 10% which have proved so troublesome to resolve, a reality Zelensky appeared to allude to. The foremost sticking factors embody the destiny of the nuclear plant, and the questions of land concession.
Trump urged it was higher to make the land concessions now, earlier than Russia invades additional.
“Some of that land has been taken. Some of that land is maybe up for grabs, but it may be taken over the next period of a number of months,” he stated. “And are you better off making a deal now?”
Heading into the meeting, Zelensky had demonstrated new flexibility, saying he’s prepared to place any peace settlement up for a referendum (Ukraine’s structure requires any adjustments to its nationwide boundaries be put up for a vote). But he stated a ceasefire can be crucial to carry it.
Russia, which launched a fresh barrage of missile and drone assaults on Ukraine forward of Sunday’s talks, has refused any discuss of ceasefire.
And throughout Trump’s name with Putin, the 2 leaders expressed that they “generally share similar views” {that a} short-term truce will solely extend the battle in Ukraine, in response to Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov.
He added that “given the situation on the front lines,” Ukraine ought to quickly resolve on what to do with the eastern Donbas region, the important thing territory sought by Putin.
Trump stated after his meeting with Zelensky that “we’re getting closer to an agreement” on the area’s destiny, which he referred to as “one of the big issues.”
Since their first, disastrous meeting in February, every meeting between Trump and Zelensky throughout Trump’s second time period has been carefully watched for its tone and tenor. None of their subsequent talks has devolved into such acrimony, although some have been described as difficult behind closed doorways.
Upon greeting Zelensky at his Palm Beach property, Trump provided reward.
“This gentleman has worked very hard, and is very brave, and his people are very brave,” Trump stated.
Zelensky started and concluded his remarks by saying thanks to Trump, notable provided that the US president and Vice President JD Vance berated him in February for not being grateful to the American leaders for his or her position in the mediation.
Trump has used Mar-a-Lago in the previous to domesticate extra private relationships with his international counterparts, together with Chinese chief Xi Jinping and the late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
While that didn’t seem like the specific function of Sunday’s meeting — Zelensky got here to Palm Beach as a result of Trump is spending the vacations right here — the setting nonetheless offered a much less formal backdrop than the White House’s Oval Office or Cabinet Room.
“He walked in, he said, ‘This place is gorgeous,’” Trump stated of Zelensky because the meeting ended. “I don’t think he wants to go to the White House anymore.”