Volodymyr Zelenskyy is heading to Mar-a-Lago this Sunday for what might be the most consequential meeting of his presidency—one where the United States is essentially asking Ukraine to accept a peace deal crafted with Russian input.
WHAT’S GOING ON: The Ukrainian president confirmed he’ll meet Trump in Florida to discuss what he calls a “90% ready” peace plan.
The catch? This 20-point proposal is an updated version of a 28-point document that U.S. envoys negotiated with Russian officials—a plan widely viewed as skewed toward the Kremlin’s demands.
The discussions follow meetings in Miami where Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner (OF COURSE) met separately with Russian and Ukrainian representatives.
THE DETAILS: Here’s what Putin is demanding, according to Kommersant: Ukraine must hand over the entire eastern Donbas region. At a closed-door meeting with Russia’s business elite this week, Putin reportedly showed some “openness” to swapping small territories—potentially exchanging land Russian forces occupy in Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia regions. How generous of him.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is pushing for security guarantees modeled on NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense pledge. Moscow’s response? “Russia constantly looks for reasons not to agree,” Zelenskyy told reporters. The Kremlin has repeatedly stated it’s prepared to keep fighting if no deal is reached, confident it can achieve its war aims militarily.
BUT BUT BUT: Russia’s battlefield dominance isn’t quite what Putin claims. Ukrainian forces just pushed Russian troops out of Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region—a rare successful counteroffensive that has pro-war Russian bloggers fuming.
The Telegram channel Rybar, which has close ties to Russia’s defense ministry, called out “systematic submission of false reports” exaggerating Russian successes. In November, Russian generals told Putin they’d “completed the liberation of Kupyansk.” Zelenskyy responded by traveling to the city’s outskirts “to show the world that Putin is lying.”
WHY IT MATTERS: This isn’t a peace negotiation in any traditional sense. It’s the United States pressuring a country defending itself against invasion to accept terms shaped by the invader.
Ukraine wants joint U.S.-Ukrainian management of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. It wants demilitarized buffer zones. It wants guarantees that Russia won’t simply regroup and attack again. Whether any of that survives Trump’s Mar-a-Lago diplomacy remains to be seen.
BOTTOM LINE: Zelenskyy says “a lot can be decided before the New Year.” Given who’s doing the deciding—and whose interests they’re representing—Ukrainians have every reason to be worried about what that decision looks like.