Volodymyr Zelensky asked Donald Trump for 50-year security guarantee for Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he asked US President Donald Trump for US security guarantees lasting as long as half a century to help deter any future Russian invasion.

Current proposals under discussion as part of a peace plan set out a 15-year term with the possibility for an extension, though “I would like the guarantee to be much longer,” Mr Zelensky said Monday in an audio message to reporters.

“We would like to consider the possibility of 30, 40, 50 years and then it will be a historic decision by Trump.”

US security guarantees that had been confirmed by Congress would combine with pledges by nations in the so-called Coalition of the Willing to form an effective protection for Ukraine, Mr Zelensky said.

European Union membership would also be part of the security arrangements for his country, he said.

“Monitoring the ceasefire - our partners will provide it, technical monitoring and presence. All these details will be in the security guarantees,” Mr Zelensky said. Both negotiating teams had agreed on the need for “strong” US security guarantees for Ukraine, he said.

The comments came after Mr Zelensky and Mr Trump held talks at the US President’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Sunday. While Mr Trump said “a lot of progress” was made toward a deal to end Russia’s almost four-year full-scale war on Ukraine, both leaders acknowledged that key issues remained unresolved.

They included the status of territories in the east of Ukraine, and the fate of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant that’s occupied by Russia.

Mr Zelensky said no consensus was reached at his talks with Mr Trump on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s demand for Ukraine to withdraw from the Donbas region that’s partially occupied by Moscow’s troops.

There was a lack of clarity over US proposals to create a demilitarised or free economic zone in the area of eastern Ukraine, including on who would control the territory.

Mr Trump said he was confident a deal was “getting a lot closer” though it might take a few weeks to conclude and there’s no set timeline. Mr Zelensky said Sunday the peace plan was “90% agreed.”

Mr Trump said he held “very productive” phone talks with Mr Putin shortly before he met with Mr Zelensky. The US and Ukrainian presidents spoke with European leaders after their discussion.

Mr Putin and Mr Trump will hold another phone call “very soon,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday.

Ukraine seeks a meeting with European partners and Mr Trump in January, Mr Zelensky said, followed by a separate meeting with Russian officials “in one format or another.”

The Coalition of the Willing group will meet in early January to discuss its support for Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron said in a post on X on Monday.

After nearly a year of US efforts to end the war failed to yield a deal, Mr Trump had said he would only meet with the Ukrainian and Russian leaders again if an agreement were imminent.

So far, the warring sides have been negotiating mainly with Mr Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

Mr Zelensky said Monday that Ukraine “does not care” about the format of negotiations with Russia, but wants Mr Putin to demonstrate his willingness to reach a deal by ceasing attacks on Ukraine.

“These actions do not coincide with the peaceful vocabulary that he uses in dialogue with the US President,” Mr Zelensky said. “I told Trump this.”

Mr Putin has continued to press his maximalist demands, including for Ukraine to cede territories in the country’s east that Moscow’s troops have failed to capture in Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.

Ukrainian officials have toiled over the last few weeks to revise a 28-point draft plan originally proposed by the US but seen as overly favourable to Russia.

The latest version has 20 points, but Moscow has warned that the plan includes elements it won’t accept, including on the size of Ukraine’s post-war military.

Russia also wants guarantees against future eastward expansion by the NATO military alliance and on Ukraine’s neutral status if it joins the EU, as well as clarity on the removal of sanctions and on hundreds of billions of dollars of Moscow’s frozen state assets in the West, according to a person close to the Kremlin.

--With assistance from Maxim Edwards.

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