Trump says will see Putin, Zelenskyy when deal in 'final stages'

President Donald Trump dispatched top negotiators for additional high level meetings with both Russia and Ukraine but said he would only be willing to meet the leaders of those countries if talks yielded a so-far elusive pact to end the war.

“The original 28-Point Peace Plan, which was drafted by the United States, has been fine-tuned, with additional input from both sides, and there are only a few remaining points of disagreement” with “tremendous progress” made over the past week, Trump said in a social media post Tuesday, referring to a proposal last week that drew the ire of Ukrainians and Europeans.

Trump directed Special Envoy Steve Witkoff to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow while Army Secretary Dan Driscoll — who has been meeting with the Russians in Abu Dhabi — was ordered to talk with the Ukrainians.

“I look forward to hopefully meeting with President Zelenskyy and President Putin soon, but ONLY when the deal to end this War is FINAL or, in its final stages,” Trump added.

Trump’s push comes amid White House optimism but international doubts about whether his push to negotiate a peace agreement would yield a deal, and despite reports earlier suggesting a deal was close.

But little suggested that the progress made between the U.S. and Ukraine would necessarily avoid the same pitfall as previous rounds: What satisfies Ukraine is likely a deal-breaker for Russia.

Trump’s disinclination to get personally involved to mediate the talks may also make reaching a deal that would require both sides to make difficult concessions harder to achieve. Ukrainian officials have signaled a desire for an invitation to meet with Trump, who is set to depart Washington Tuesday evening to spend the Thanksgiving holiday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier in the day appeared to rebut suggestions Kyiv had signed off on a potential deal to end Russia’s full-scale invasion.

“Communication with the American side continues,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X following a phone call with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Tuesday. “I am grateful for all of America’s efforts and personally for President Trump’s efforts.”

Speculation ran high that an agreement could be close after Trump suggested in a social media post on Monday that “big progress” was being made on a deal for Ukraine. ABC News on Tuesday reported that Ukraine agreed to a potential peace deal with some minor details to be sorted, citing a U.S. official.

Any momentum toward a U.S.-Ukraine agreement also could hit a wall, yet again, with Russia.

“It’s very simple: Trump’s objective remains a durable peace. Putin’s objective remains political control of Ukraine,” said John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and Uzbekistan now at the Atlantic Council. “So we’re never going to get there unless Putin is persuaded that he cannot achieve his objective.”

U.S. and Russian delegations have been meeting in Abu Dhabi following talks in Geneva over the weekend that made advances in defusing the vehement opposition from Kyiv and its European allies to a 28-point peace proposal the White House team floated last week. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he had nothing to report when asked about the talks in Abu Dhabi, according to the Interfax news service.

That initial draft plan caught Kyiv and Ukrainian allies off-guard with its demands that the war-battered nation drop its ambition to join NATO and surrender territory in the eastern Donbas regions, including areas Russia doesn’t yet control.

That plan was an outgrowth of conversations Witkoff had with Russian officials. In an Oct. 14 phone call that lasted a little over five minutes, Witkoff advised Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s top foreign policy aide, on how the Russian leader should broach the issue with Trump.

His guidance included suggestions on setting up a Trump-Putin call before Zelenskyy’s White House visit later that week and using the Gaza agreement as a way in.

Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, was also in Abu Dhabi for meetings, a person familiar with the matter said. Military intelligence didn’t reply to requests for comment from Bloomberg News.

The peace blueprint was narrowed to a new list of 19 proposals in Geneva on Sunday. Yet any discussions involving territorial issues, which are at the crux of a potential settlement, would have to be tackled at a meeting between the Ukrainian and U.S. presidents, according to Ihor Brusylo, the deputy chief of Zelenskyy’s office.

Rustem Umerov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, said earlier on Tuesday that U.S. and Ukrainian delegations “reached a common understanding on the core terms of the agreement discussed in Geneva.” Ukraine was looking forward to organizing a visit by Zelenskyy to the U.S. at the soonest possible date this month, he posted on X.

Europe call

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and France’s Emmanuel Macron held a call on Tuesday with Zelenskyy and officials from Germany, Italy, Sweden, New Zealand, Estonia and the European Union to discuss the negotiations. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio joined the meeting for the first time, in the latest sign that he’s acting as Trump’s bridge between the U.S. and Europeans over the latest peace talks.

Starmer told the leaders that Ukraine has proposed “constructive changes” to the framework for the peace deal and that Zelenskyy has indicated that “in large part the majority of the text looks as though” it “could be accepted.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday that Moscow expected the U.S. to present a version of the plan after the talks with Europeans and Ukraine. But he also signaled that any deviations from the understandings reached during Trump’s summit with Putin in Alaska earlier this year would be a hard sell with the Kremlin.

“If the spirit and letter of Anchorage are erased from those key understandings we recorded, then, of course, it will be a fundamentally different situation,” Lavrov said. “But so far, I repeat, no one has officially conveyed anything to us.”

Russia and Ukraine exchanged fire overnight with heavy air raids on Kyiv and assaults on southern Russian areas.

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—With assistance from Patrick Donahue, Eric Martin, Ellen Milligan and Jen Judson.

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