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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he will meet with his US counterpart Donald Trump in Florida on Sunday, as talks continue to end Russia's full-scale war.
Zelensky said he wanted to focus on a U.S.-brokered peace plan and separate proposals for U.S. security guarantees. But a senior Russian official said the plan was "fundamentally different" from the one Russia was negotiating with the U.S.
The Kremlin has not commented on Zelensky's offer to withdraw troops from Ukraine's eastern Donbas region if Russia also withdraws.
At least five people were injured overnight in the capital Kiev in a new wave of Russian air strikes, the mayor said. Another person was injured in the Kiev region.
Kiev Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said Ukraine's air defense forces were repelling the attack, while eyewitnesses reported explosions in the city.
The Russian attack is continuing on Saturday morning, with the Ukrainian air force warning that a drone and missile threat is in effect for the entire country.
Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Moscow currently controls about 75% of the Donetsk region and about 99% of neighboring Luhansk. The regions are collectively known as Donbas.
Ukraine has tried to secure guarantees from the US as part of a peace deal, and Zelensky has suggested that a demilitarized "free economic zone" is a possible option for areas of Donbas that Russia has failed to take by force.
On Friday, Zelensky told reporters that the 20-point plan was 90% complete: "Our task is to make sure that everything is 100% ready," he added.
He wrote on social media that "we are not wasting a day. We have agreed to a meeting at the highest level, with President Trump in the near future. Many things can be decided before the new year."
But in an interview with Politico published Friday, Trump said his Ukrainian counterpart "has nothing until I approve it."
"I think he'll do well with it. I think he'll do well with Vladimir Putin," Trump said.
He also said he expects to speak with the Russian president "soon."
Trump also told Politico that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit him in the coming days.
Putin's top aides have held further talks with US officials by phone after the Kremlin's envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, returned from a meeting in Florida last weekend.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov was positive about the latest developments, but accused Ukraine of trying to "destroy" talks on the US plan.
"I think December 25, 2025 will remain in our memory as a historic moment when we really came close to a solution. But whether we can make the final effort and reach an agreement depends on our work and the political will of the other side," he said in comments to Russian state television on Friday.
Shortly after details of Zelensky's upcoming visit to Florida were released, the mayor of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city in the northeast, said two people had been killed and several others wounded in a Russian airstrike.
Zelensky has met with Trump several times this year, since an initial meeting at the White House in February degenerated into a hostile, shouting match. Their most recent meeting at the White House in October was much friendlier.
Confirmation of the planned high-level talks came after the Ukrainian leader said he had spoken with Trump's chief negotiators, special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner, for an hour on the phone on Christmas Day.
He said the latest round of negotiations had generated "new ideas" on how to end the war and described it as a "really good conversation".
The White House has proposed the creation of what would effectively be a demilitarized zone in eastern Ukraine, where both sides agree not to deploy troops, a compromise that would avoid resolving the difficult issue of legal ownership over the disputed territory.
Zelensky signaled on Wednesday that if Ukraine were to withdraw up to 40km from the front line in the east to create an economic zone, then Russia would have to do the same from occupied parts of Ukraine's industrial heartland in Donbas.
Zelensky told reporters on Friday that the weekend talks in Florida will focus on several documents, including US security guarantees and a separate economic agreement.
However, Zelensky has repeatedly said that the territorial issue has proven to be the most difficult issue to resolve, along with the future of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
The White House has proposed that Ukraine and Russia share the energy generated by the power plant, the largest in Europe. Russian troops currently control it. /Adapted from BBC /
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