West Palm Beach (US): President Donald Trump will host his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on Sunday to try to close out a peace agreement that would end nearly four years of war sparked by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia intensified its attacks on Ukraine’s capital and elsewhere in the days before the meeting.
The two will meet at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, Florida, where the US president is spending the holidays. Zelenskyy said the two planned to discuss security and economic agreements, and he will raise “territorial issues” as Moscow and Kyiv remain fiercely at odds over the fate of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.
In overnight developments, three guided aerial bombs launched by Russia struck private homes in the eastern city of Sloviansk, according to the head of the local military administration, Vadym Lakh. Three people were injured, and one man died, Lakh said in a post on the Telegram messenger app. The strike came the day after Russia attacked Ukraine’s capital with ballistic missiles and drones on Saturday, killing at least one person and wounding 27, a day before planned talks between the leaders of Ukraine and the United States, Ukrainian authorities said. Explosions boomed across Kyiv as the attack began in the early morning and continued for hours.
Elsewhere, power line repairs aimed to lessen the risk of a nuclear accident have started near Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, after the International Atomic Energy Agency brokered a local ceasefire, the agency said, citing its director general, Rafael Grossi.
In a post on X, the agency said “crucial” works are expected to last a few days. Russian forces have occupied the Zaporizhzhia plant since the early days of the full-scale war. Zelenskyy has said the fate of the plant is one of the key issues to be resolved during the US-led peace negotiations with Russia.
“Ukraine is willing to do whatever it takes to stop this war,” Zelenskyy posted Saturday on X. “We need to be strong at the negotiating table.”
In response to the attacks, he wrote: “We want peace, and Russia demonstrates a desire to continue the war. If the whole world — Europe and America — is on our side, together we will stop” Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Saturday, Zelenskyy said the key to peace is “pressure on Russia and sufficient, strong support for Ukraine.” To that end, Carney announced 2.5 billion Canadian dollars (USD 1.8 billion) more in economic assistance from his government to help Ukraine rebuild.
Denouncing the “barbarism” of Russia’s latest attacks on Kyiv, Carney credited both Zelenskyy and Trump with creating the conditions for a “just and lasting peace” at a crucial moment.
Trump and Zelenskyy sitting down face-to-face also underscored the apparent progress made by Trump’s top negotiators in recent weeks as the sides traded draft peace plans and continued to shape a proposal to end the fighting. Zelenskyy told reporters Friday that the 20-point draft proposal negotiators have discussed is “about 90 per cent ready” — echoing a figure and optimism that US officials conveyed when Trump’s chief negotiators met Zelenskyy in Berlin earlier this month.