Trump says Zelenskyy 'isn't ready' to sign US-backed peace deal

US President Donald Trump has said his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy is not ready to sign a US-led peace proposal aimed at ending Russia's war in Ukraine.

Trump was critical of Zelenskyy after US and Ukrainian negotiators completed three days of talks on Saturday aimed at bridging the differences in Washington's proposal.

In an exchange with reporters on Sunday night, Trump suggested that the Ukrainian leader is holding up the talks from moving forward.

“I’m a little bit disappointed that President Zelenskyy hasn’t yet read the proposal, that was as of a few hours ago. His people love it, but he hasn’t,” Trump said before taking part in the Kennedy Center Honours.

"Russia is, I believe, fine with it, but I’m not sure that Zelenskyy’s fine with it. His people love it it. But he isn’t ready.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has not publicly expressed approval for the White House plan. Putin said last week that aspects of Trump's proposal were unworkable, even though the original draft heavily favoured Moscow.

Trump has had a hot-and-cold relationship with Zelenskyy since the beginning of his second White House term insisting that the war was a waste of US taxpayer money. Trump has also repeatedly urged Kyiv to cede land to Moscow to bring an end to a now nearly four-year war.

Zelenskyy said he had a “substantive phone call” with US officials engaged in the talks with a Ukrainian delegation in Florida. He said he had been given an update by US and Ukrainian officials at the negotiations over the phone.

“Ukraine is determined to keep working in good faith with the American side to genuinely achieve peace,” Zelenskyy wrote in a social media post on Saturday.

'The last 10 metres'

Trump's criticism of Zelenskyy came as Russia on Sunday welcomed the Trump administration’s new national security strategy.

The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the updated strategic document, which spells out the administration's core foreign policy interests, was largely in line with Moscow’s vision.

“There are statements there against confrontation and in favour of dialogue and building good relations,” he said.

The document released Friday by the White House said the US wants to improve its relationship with Russia after years of Moscow being treated as a global pariah and that ending the war is a core US interest to “reestablish strategic stability with Russia.”

Speaking on Saturday at the Reagan National Defence Forum, Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, said efforts to end the war were in “the last 10 metres.”

He said a deal depended on the two outstanding issues of “terrain, primarily the Donbas,” and the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.

Russia has occupied parts of the Donbas, the joint term for the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, which, along with parts of two southern regions it also occupied, it illegally annexed three years ago.

The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is in an area that has been under Russian control since early in Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 and is not in service. It needs reliable power to cool its six shutdown reactors and spent fuel, to avoid any catastrophic nuclear incidents.

Kellogg, who is due to leave his post in January, was not present at the talks in Florida.

Separately, officials said the leaders of the UK, France and Germany would meet with Zelenskyy in London on Monday.

As the three days of talks wrapped up, Russian missile, drone and shelling attacks overnight and Sunday killed at least four people in Ukraine.

One person was killed in a drone attack on Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv region Saturday night, local officials said, Three people were killed and 10 others wounded Sunday in shelling by Russian troops in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, according to the regional prosecutor’s office.

Meanwhile, a combined missile and drone attack on infrastructure in the central city of Kremenchuk caused power and water outages. Kremenchuk is home to one of Ukraine’s biggest oil refineries and is an industrial hub.

Like in previous winters since 2022, Russia is trying to cripple the Ukrainian power grid and deny civilians access to heat, light and running water, in what Ukrainian officials call “weaponising” the cold weather.