A meeting with US President Donald Trump will take place "in the near future," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said today, pointing to progress in talks to end the nearly four-year-old Russia-Ukraine war.
"We are not wasting a single day. We have agreed to a top-level meeting with President Trump in the near future," Zelensky wrote on the X network, adding that "much can be decided before the New Year."
Axios journalist Barak Ravid then wrote on X, citing a Ukrainian official, that the meeting would take place on Sunday, at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Zelensky's announcement followed his statement yesterday that he had a "good conversation" with US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.
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Trump has launched a broad diplomatic initiative to end the war, but his efforts have so far been met with strongly opposing demands from Moscow and Kiev.
Zelensky said on Tuesday that he would be ready to withdraw troops from the country's eastern industrial hub as part of a plan to end the war if Russia also withdraws and the area becomes a demilitarized zone monitored by international forces.
Although Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said yesterday that "slow but steady progress" had been made in peace talks, Russia gave no indication that it would agree to any withdrawal from the territory it had occupied.
Moscow actually insisted that Ukraine hand over the territory it still holds in Donbas (which includes the eastern territories of Donetsk and Luhansk), an ultimatum that Ukraine rejected. Russia has taken most of Luhansk and about 70 percent of Donetsk.
Russian drone attacks on the city of Mykolaiv and its suburbs have left part of the city without electricity.
On the other hand, Ukraine hit a major Russian oil refinery yesterday using Storm Shadow missiles, which were given to it by Britain.
The Ukrainian General Staff announced that its forces had hit the Novoshakhtinsk refinery in Russia's Rostov region.
"Numerous explosions were recorded. The target was hit," the Ukrainian General Staff said on Telegram.
Rostov regional governor Yur Slyusar said one firefighter was injured while fighting the fire.
Ukraine's long-range drone attacks on Russian refineries are aimed at depriving Moscow of the oil export revenue it needs to continue its all-out invasion. Russia wants to damage Ukraine's power grid and deprive civilians of access to heat, light and running water in actions that Kiev officials call an attempt to weaponize winter.
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