Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday that he will meet with US President Donald Trump in Florida this weekend.
Zelenskyy told reporters that the two leaders would discuss Ukraine’s security guarantees during Sunday’s talks, and that the 20-point negotiating plan was “90 percent ready.”
An “economic agreement” will also be discussed, Zelenskyy said, but added that he could not guarantee “that something will be finalized in the end.”
The Ukrainian side will also raise “local issues”, he said.
Moscow has insisted that Ukraine withdraw the territory it still holds in the Donbas – a conclusion that Ukraine has rejected. Russia holds most of Luhansk and about 70 percent of Donetsk – the two areas that make up Donbas.
Zelenskyy said Ukraine would “like the Europeans to take part,” but doubted it would happen soon.
“We must, without a doubt, find a format in the near future where not only Ukraine and the US, but Europe is represented as well,” he said.
The announced meeting is the latest development in a broader US-led effort to end the nearly four-year Russia-Ukraine war, but the efforts have faced sharply opposing demands from Moscow and Kyiv.
Zelenskyy’s comments come after he said on Thursday that he had a “good conversation” with US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.
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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday that the Kremlin has already been in contact with US representatives since Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev recently met with US delegations in Florida.
“It was agreed that the negotiations should continue,” he said.
Trump has participated in a diplomatic mission to end the war with Russia, which began on February 24, 2022, but his efforts have faced the most conflicting demands of Moscow and Kyiv.
Zelenskyy said on Tuesday that he would agree to withdraw troops from an industrial zone in eastern Ukraine as part of a plan to end the war, if Russia also withdraws and the area becomes a demilitarized zone monitored by international forces.
Although Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday there had been “slow but steady progress” in peace talks, Russia has given no indication that it will accept any kind of withdrawal from the land it has taken.
On the ground, two people were killed and six others were injured on Friday when an aerial bomb hit a busy road and set fire to cars in Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram.
One person was killed and three others were injured when a bomb hit a house in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, while six people were injured in a missile strike in the city of Uman, local officials said on Friday.
Russian airstrikes in and around the city of Mykolaiv on Friday left part of the city without power. Energy and port infrastructure has been damaged by drones in the Black Sea city of Odesa.
Meanwhile, Ukraine said it struck a major Russian oil refinery on Thursday using UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles.
Ukraine’s General Staff said its forces struck the Novoshakhtinsk refinery in Russia’s Rostov region.
“Many explosions were recorded. The target was hit,” he wrote on Telegram.
Rostov district manager Yuri Slyusar said a firefighter was injured while putting out the fire.
Ukraine’s long-range strikes on Russian oil refineries aim to deprive Moscow of the oil export revenue it needs to continue its full-scale offensive.
Russia wants to cripple Ukraine’s electricity grid, denying residents access to heat, light and running water in what Ukrainian officials say is an attempt to “winterize.”
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