Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is en route to the U.S. via Canada ahead of a weekend of high-stakes diplomacy and a renewed push for peace amid deadly Russian bombing on Ukraine’s capital.
Zelenskyy is set to meet with President Donald Trump in Florida on Sunday, after a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and phone calls with European leaders Saturday.
As Trump ups pressure to bring the war to an end, Zelenskyy said that the critical issue of U.S.-backed security guarantees for Ukraine, to prevent a further Russian incursion, would be at the behest of the president.
“For us, it is very important that there is a signal that we want legally binding security guarantees,” Zelenskyy told Ukrainian journalists in a Q&A session via WhatsApp on Saturday. “This primarily depends on President Trump. The question is what security guarantees President Trump is ready to provide to Ukraine.”
If Russia "turns even the Christmas and New Year period into a time of destroyed homes and burned apartments, of ruined power plants, then this sick activity can only be responded to with truly strong steps,” he had posted on X earlier as he embarked on the trip. “The United States has this capability. Europe has this capability.”
As well as his meetings with Trump and Carney, Zelenskyy said he would talk remotely with European leaders to “exchange the details of the documents I will be discussing with the President of the United States.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will be in attendance during the online meeting, a European Commission spokesperson told NBC News.
European leaders have been largely sidelined in the main negotiations between the U.S., Ukraine and Russia.
They have focused on how to support Ukraine in the event of a peace deal, with talks ongoing over security guarantees and funding. But longtime American allies in Europe have struggled to balance mounting pressure from Washington with their reluctance to give in to Russia’s hard-line demands.
A Ukrainian official familiar with the planning for Sunday’s meeting between Zelenskyy and Trump told NBC News that, in addition to security guarantees for Ukraine, the Ukrainians are preparing to discuss economic prosperity and reconstruction of the war-torn country.
There are also talks of holding a joint news conference with Trump and Zelenskyy, not necessarily to announce anything new, but to discuss the results of the meeting, the Ukrainian official said.
In a WhatsApp chat with Ukrainian journalists on Friday, Zelenskyy said, “The 20-point plan we have been working on is 90% ready,” and that negotiating teams in Ukraine and the U.S. had made “significant progress.”
“Our task is to make sure everything is 100% ready,” he added. “With each such meeting and each such conversation, we must bring the desired result closer.”
Trump has made a high-level diplomatic push to end the war, but his efforts have run into Moscow’s and Kyiv’s widely differing positions and demands, while Russia remains unrelenting in its offensive.
Heavy Russian shelling and explosions struck Kyiv and the surrounding region early Saturday morning, killing at least two people and injuring 20 more, according to the Ukrainian Minister of Interior Ihor Klymenko said, adding that more than 10 residential buildings in the city had been damaged.
The strikes caused the temporary closure of two airports in southeastern Poland after the Polish air force scrambled fighter jets, the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency said on X.
Zelenskyy said Saturday that 500 Russian drones and 40 missiles had struck the nation, Putin, who launched a full-scale invasion of Russia’s much smaller neighbor in February 2022, has not backed off maximalist demands that would see Ukraine blocked from integrating with the West and limit its ability to defend itself. Until Tuesday, Zelenskyy had maintained that he would be unwilling to withdraw troops from the country’s eastern industrial heartland, much of which has been occupied by Russian forces, as part of a plan to end the war.
The Ukrainian leader has since given details of an updated peace plan offering Russia the potential withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the east and the creation of a demilitarized zone in their place.
Trump told Politico Friday that he anticipated a “good” meeting with the Ukrainian leader, though he offered no endorsement of Zelenskyy’s plan.
Zelenskyy “doesn’t have anything until I approve it,” he said. “So we’ll see what he’s got.”
