Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US special envoy Steve Witkoff in Berlin, December 15, 2025. LISI NIESNER/REUTERS
It's a risky meeting. On Sunday, December 28, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump's Florida estate, to hold talks with his American counterpart. Announced by Kyiv on Friday, this visit is intended to finalize the terms of a peace plan, nearly four years after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Moscow will not take part in the discussions. At this stage, the challenge is to reconcile the positions of Kyiv and Washington, whose alliance has become uncertain since Trump's return to the White House. "In my opinion, I see now that the agreement between us and the US is almost ready," Zelensky said Friday during a WhatsApp exchange with the press, without commenting on the possibility of signing a document at the end of the day's negotiations.
Eager to end the war, the US president appears to believe that peace will only be possible by yielding to most of Moscow's demands. The American proposal, unveiled on November 21, called for concessions that Kyiv considers unacceptable – as if Washington had forgotten that Moscow is the aggressor and Kyiv the victim. "Russia has the upper hand (...). And they always did. They're much bigger," Trump argued in an interview with Politico on December 9.
