U.S. President Donald Trump has said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is “not ready” to approve a U.S.-drafted peace proposal aimed at ending the war with Russia. Trump expressed disappointment that Zelensky had not yet engaged with the plan, which has been the focus of three days of talks between American and Ukrainian negotiators in Florida.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday night ahead of the Kennedy Center Honors, Trump said Zelensky had still not reviewed the proposal. “His team supports it, but he hasn’t looked at it. Russia, from what I understand, is comfortable with it. Zelensky isn’t,” Trump claimed.
Despite Trump’s comments, Russian President Vladimir Putin has not publicly endorsed the plan. In earlier statements, Putin said several elements of the U.S. proposal were unrealistic, even though the initial draft was widely described as favoring Moscow.
Relations between Trump and Zelensky have remained strained since Trump returned to office, with Trump repeatedly arguing that the conflict is a waste of U.S. resources. He has urged Ukraine to consider giving up some territory to bring the nearly four-year war to an end.
Zelensky said on Saturday that he held a “substantive” call with U.S. and Ukrainian officials who participated in the Florida discussions. In a social media post, he noted that Ukraine remains committed to working with Washington “in good faith” toward a genuine peace deal.
Trump’s remarks came as the Kremlin welcomed the White House’s updated national security strategy, released Friday. Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the document’s emphasis on dialogue aligns with Moscow’s own priorities and expressed hope for more “constructive cooperation” with Washington on resolving the conflict.
The strategy paper identifies stabilizing U.S.-Russia relations and ending the war as central U.S. national interests.
Meanwhile, Trump’s outgoing Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, suggested at the Reagan National Defense Forum that negotiations are nearing their final stages. He said only two major issues remain unresolved: control of the Donbas region, parts of which Russia seized and claimed to annex three years ago, and the status of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which remains offline but requires constant power for reactor cooling.
