{"id":373747,"date":"2025-12-28T08:51:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T08:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/373747\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T08:51:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T08:51:11","slug":"zelensky-says-russia-doesnt-want-peace-ahead-of-florida-meeting-with-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/373747\/","title":{"rendered":"Zelensky says Russia ‘doesn’t want peace’, ahead of Florida meeting with Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rachel Muller-Heyndykand<\/p>\n

Adam Goldsmith<\/p>\n

\"ReutersReuters<\/p>\n

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will meet Donald Trump in Florida on Sunday, for the latest round of talks aimed at ending nearly four years of war with Russia. <\/p>\n

The pair will discuss an updated version of a US-brokered peace plan, which Moscow is yet to support, as well as separate proposals for US security guarantees.<\/p>\n

Their meeting at the US president’s Mar-a-Lago home follows intense Russian bombardment of Kyiv over the weekend, which Zelensky said is evidence that Moscow “doesn’t want peace”. <\/p>\n

On Friday night, a 10-hour missile and drone barrage targeting Ukraine’s capital killed two people and left 32 others injured, local authorities said.<\/p>\n

There were further Russian strikes on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

At the meeting in Florida, Zelensky is expected to raise security guarantees and territorial concessions for Ukraine, both of which are issues that Russia has previously been unwilling to compromise on<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They will also discuss the new 20-point peace plan, a revised version of an earlier 28-point plan drafted by US special envoy Steve Witkoff which was widely seen as being too favourable to Russia.<\/p>\n

Control of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas has been a major sticking point so far, but Zelensky has now said a “free economic zone” could be an option. <\/p>\n

Moscow currently controls about 75% of the Donetsk region, and some 99% of the neighbouring Luhansk. The regions are collectively known as Donbas.<\/p>\n

The Kremlin has not commented on Zelensky’s offer to withdraw troops from the eastern Donbas region, if Russia pulls back too.<\/p>\n

But on Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Ukraine was “in no hurry to resolve this conflict peacefully”, state-owned news agency Tass reported.<\/p>\n

Putin added that if Kyiv did not want to resolve the conflict peacefully, Russia would accomplish its objectives militarily.<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian president has voiced optimism about the new peace plan draft, describing it as “a foundational document on ending the war”. <\/p>\n

On Friday, he told reporters that it was 90% complete: “Our task is to make sure everything is 100% ready.”<\/p>\n

But in an interview with Politico<\/a>, Trump warned that Zelensky “doesn’t have anything until I approve it”. <\/p>\n

Trump added that he was expecting to see the new draft on Sunday.<\/p>\n

“I think it’s going to go good with him. I think it’s going to go good with [Vladimir] Putin,” Trump said in the interview, adding that he expects to speak with Russia’s president “soon”. <\/p>\n

Following meetings with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Zelensky said Moscow’s latest attack on Kyiv was “Russia’s answer [to] our peace efforts and this really shows that Putin doesn’t want peace”.<\/p>\n

Zelensky also took a call with European leaders to discuss diplomatic “priorities” ahead of his meeting with Trump, adding that “strong positions are needed” to move forward with the plan.<\/p>\n

Kyiv has the “full support” of European and Nato leaders, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said. <\/p>\n

Gunfire and blasts heard on Friday night into Saturday morning in Kyiv<\/p>\n

Russia launched attacks on Ukraine over the weekend – the most destructive of which happened Friday night into Saturday morning, targeting Kyiv. <\/p>\n

Ukrainian officials said Russia’s attacks on Kyiv caused significant damage to energy infrastructure, with 40% of residential buildings in Kyiv and nearby districts left without heating. <\/p>\n

Russia’s defence ministry said long-range precision weapons were used to target energy facilities, which it claimed were being used “in the interests of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and enterprises of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex”.<\/p>\n

Russia directed almost 500 drones and 40 missiles towards Kyiv, targeting energy and civilian infrastructure, according to Ukrainian officials.<\/p>\n

Pictures showed gaping holes in apartment buildings and homes on fire following the strikes.<\/p>\n

The apartment block of BBC journalist Anastasiya Gribanova was struck, leaving some homes on the higher levels of the high-rise building in flames. Gribanova, who was in the building’s elevator at the time, was unharmed.<\/p>\n

The attack saw Poland, which shares a 530km-long (320 miles) border with western Ukraine, ready its fighter jets, ground-based air defence systems and radar reconnaissance.<\/p>\n

Later on Saturday morning, it concluded that there had been no violation of the country’s airspace.<\/p>\n

Russia’s defence ministry said its air defence systems had intercepted and destroyed almost 200 Ukrainian drones over several Russian regions, including eight over Moscow.<\/p>\n

A smaller number of missiles were fired at Ukraine on Saturday night into Sunday, Ukraine’s General Staff of the Armed Forces said.<\/p>\n

It said the army had repelled 30 drones in the north, south and east of the country. No casualties were reported.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rachel Muller-Heyndykand Adam Goldsmith Reuters Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will meet Donald Trump in Florida on Sunday, for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-373747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}