US and Ukraine 'a lot closer' on peace deal, Trump says after meeting with Zelenskiy

(VOVWORLD) - US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy were "getting a lot closer, maybe very close" to an agreement to end the conflict in Ukraine, while acknowledging that the fate of the disputed Donbas region remains a key unresolved issue. 

Speaking at a joint news conference after meeting in Florida on Sunday afternoon, leaders reported progress on two of the most contentious issues in peace talks - security guarantees for Ukraine and the division of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region that Russia has sought to capture.

They offered few details and did not provide a deadline for completing a peace deal, although Trump said it will be clear "in a few weeks" whether negotiations to end the conflict will succeed. He said a few "thorny issues" around territory must be resolved.

Zelenskiy said an agreement on security guarantees for Ukraine has been reached. Trump was slightly more cautious, saying that they were 95% of the way to such an agreement, and that he expected European countries to "take over a big part" of that effort with US backing.

French President Emmanuel Macron, in an X post published after Trump met with Zelenskiy, said progress was made on security guarantees. Macron said countries in the so-called "Coalition of the Willing" would meet in Paris in early January to finalise their "concrete contributions."

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