Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said negotiators discussing a US-brokered peace initiative remain divided over territory as President Donald Trump expressed disappointment in Kyiv’s handling of the deal.
Elements of the US plan require further discussion on a number of “sensitive issues,” including security guarantees for the war-battered nation and control over eastern regions, Zelenskiy said in a phone interview. The Ukrainian leader said talks have yet to yield agreement on Ukraine’s Donbas, including the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk.
“There are visions of the US, Russia and Ukraine — and we don’t have a unified view on Donbas,” Zelenskiy told Bloomberg News early Monday before his departure to London to meet leaders of the UK, Germany and France. He said Kyiv is pushing for a separate agreement on security guarantees from Western allies, above all the US.
Zelenskiy spoke hours after Trump criticized him — in contrast with comments in recent days about President Vladimir Putin’s reaction to the proposal — saying he was “a little bit disappointed” in the Ukrainian leader, who he claimed hadn’t yet read the proposal. Moscow, on the other hand, was “fine with it,” Trump told reporters in Washington on Sunday.
Zelenskiy said the talks were “long and difficult, but they are not confrontational.” Still, his comments signal that more ground needed to be covered to reach consensus. The US said on Friday that negotiators had locked in an agreement with Kyiv on a “framework of security arrangements” and discussed what was needed to prevent another attack, though there was little indication of a major breakthrough.
The Ukrainian president, who said he’s prepared to fly to Washington for talks with Trump, reinforced Kyiv’s position that security guarantees function like NATO’s mutual-defense mechanism, known as Article 5. But he wants to know what Western allies were prepared to offer, he said, with negotiators working on a separate accord involving the guarantees.
“There is one question I — and all Ukrainians — want to get an answer to: if Russia again starts a war, what will our partners do,” Zelenskiy said.
The Ukrainian leader arrived in London Monday to discuss the US proposal in a meeting with Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron. Zelenskiy said his country needed unity between its main allies to secure an agreement.
“There are some things which we can’t manage without Americans,” as well as some “things which couldn’t manage without Europe,” Zelenskiy said in Downing Street at the start of the four-way meeting. “That’s why we need to make some important decisions.”
Ukraine’s European allies, largely shut out of the American-led diplomacy, have bridled at an initiative viewed as leaning toward Moscow. Trump has dispatched his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law Jared Kushner to work over the proposal in talks in Moscow, while Ukrainian officials have shuttled between Kyiv, Geneva and Florida.
While an initial 28-point draft, which appeared favorable to Russia, gave way to a 20-point framework document, there remains little clarity on how Moscow will be deterred from another attack.
Merz said he was “skeptical about some of the details which we are seeing in the documents coming from the US side, but we have to talk about it.”
The Kremlin demands Ukraine cede areas of the Donetsk region that its troops failed to take by force in nearly four years of war. Zelenskiy and European allies have repeatedly said a ceasefire must be imposed along the current front line, rejecting a demand for the Ukrainian army to withdraw.
Elements of the US plan also include Ukraine’s perspective to join the European Union and tapping immobilized Russian central bank assets.
“We are talking to the US — it is constructive work,” Zelenskiy said. “But there are questions that concern Europe — and we cannot decide for Europe. We need to discuss with Europe Ukraine’s membership in the EU, which is also part of security guarantees.”
In London, Zelenskiy will meet his top security official, Rustem Umerov, who held a meeting with Witkoff and Kushner over the weekend, for a detailed briefing. He’ll travel on to Brussels for talks later Monday and to Rome for a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Tuesday, he said.
“After that, we will have our joint vision” for the talks, Zelenskiy said. “And I am ready to fly to the US if the president is ready for such a meeting.”
