Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky travelled to Florida following a meeting in Ottawa with former Bank of England governor Mark Carney. The visit came after a phone call with UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, during which the British leader reiterated his country's unwavering support for Ukraine and coordinated closely with the Ukrainian president.
Zelensky said the diplomatic activity of the past few days was among the most active of the year and that many decisions could be taken before the New Year. He reported that a twenty‑point draft peace proposal was about ninety percent ready and that it included a security guarantee for Ukraine comparable to NATO Article 5, which would also bind Canada as a NATO member.
The Florida talks were expected to focus on security guarantees and the most sensitive territorial issues in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions. Zelensky confirmed that the draft plan opposed Russian demands for the cession of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions and that he remained open to creating a demilitarised zone on Ukraine’s eastern border.
Former US President Donald Trump, speaking at Mar‑a‑Lago, said he was in the final stages of discussions with the Russian and Ukrainian leaders and warned that the war could either end or continue with many more deaths. He claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was prepared to negotiate a deal and described the Ukraine conflict as the most difficult of the eight wars he said he had settled. Trump later described the prospect of ending the war as complicated but not overly so, expressing optimism that both sides wanted peace.
Trump also said he had a good and very productive phone call with President Putin on a Sunday morning. The former US president linked the Florida meeting to his year‑long effort to achieve a ceasefire, a goal he announced he would pursue on his first day in office.
Russia carried out missile and drone attacks on Kyiv one day before the Florida talks. Zelensky interpreted the attacks as evidence that President Putin did not want peace.
European leaders, including Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron, said that any ceasefire agreement should include NATO monitoring. Additional conditions mentioned by European officials were that Ukraine retain a peacetime army of eight hundred thousand troops and be allowed to join the European Union. The United States was reported to have offered unspecified security guarantees.
Zelensky expressed hope that European leaders could join the talks either on Sunday or at a later date, and thanked Sir Keir Starmer for the constant coordination that had taken place.