The US has offered Ukraine a 15-year security guarantee, but Kyiv wants a period three times as long to deter Russian aggression, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday.
Mr Zelenskiy also denied accusations by Moscow that Kyiv tried to attack a residence belonging to Russian president Vladimir Putin with drones.
The Ukrainian president called for a guarantee lasting as much as 50 years the day after a Florida summit with US president Donald Trump that both leaders said was significant but which failed to make a decisive breakthrough.
In a WhatsApp exchange with reporters as he returned to Europe on Monday, Mr Zelenskiy said he had told the US president that 15 years would be too short to deter Russia in a conflict that began with the 2014 annexation of Crimea.
“I also told him that we would like to consider the possibility of 30, 40 or 50 years,” he added. A 20-point draft peace plan that Kyiv revealed earlier this month mentioned a security guarantee that would “mirror” the Nato alliance’s Article 5 commitment to mutual defence.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the security guarantee offer.
Russia on Monday accused Ukraine of attacking one of president Vladimir Putin’s residences with drones, saying this “definitive move to a policy of state terror” had prompted it to “reconsider its negotiating position” on the conflict. But Mr Zelenskiy said the Russian claim was a “complete fabrication intended to justify additional attacks against Ukraine”.
Speaking at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach on Sunday, Mr Trump said he had an “excellent” discussion with Mr Zelenskiy that “made a lot of progress” towards ending the war in Ukraine.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and US president Donald Trump in Florida on Sunday. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
The US president said he had held a “good and very productive” telephone conversation lasting more than two hours with Mr Putin prior to his meeting with Mr Zelenskiy. Mr Trump then held a second call with Mr Putin on Monday, said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt in a post on X.
“President Trump has concluded a positive call with President Putin concerning Ukraine,” Leavitt wrote. She did not immediately respond to a request for further details about the conversation.
[ Trump says deal to end Ukraine war ‘very close’ but thorny issues remainOpens in new window ]
The Kremlin said Mr Putin had told Mr Trump that the alleged drone attack on the Russian president’s northern residence would not “go unanswered”.
State newswire Tass quoted Yuri Ushakov, Mr Putin’s foreign policy adviser, as saying Mr Trump was “shocked and outraged” by the “crazy” attack and that the US president added: “Thank God we didn’t give them Tomahawks”, the long-range precision missiles Kyiv lobbied the US for in the autumn.
According to Mr Uskakov, Mr Putin told Mr Trump that Moscow would “reconsider its position” on negotiations with Ukraine after the alleged attack and that some agreements Mr Zelenskiy reached with the US a day earlier had given Kyiv “space to evade its commitments”.
In his exchanges with reporters, Mr Zelenskiy said Moscow had fabricated the alleged drone attack to justify not taking necessary steps to end the war. “Russia is at it again, using dangerous statements to undermine all achievements of our shared diplomatic efforts with President Trump’s team,” he said.
European leaders have sought to strike a positive tone on the Florida talks, with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen welcoming the “good progress” made but adding that “paramount to this effort is to have ironclad security guarantees from day one”.
The German government on Monday raised doubt about Mr Putin’s commitment to the process after heavy attacks on Ukraine over Christmas.
“It is now up to Russia to demonstrate that it is willing to move towards a just and lasting peace for Ukraine,” a German government spokesperson said.
Spanish defence minister Margarita Robles said Europe must continue to support Kyiv. “That fair and lasting peace and its conditions must be decided by Ukraine, it cannot be dictated by Putin,” Ms Robles told Spanish public broadcaster RTVE.
Mr Zelenskiy said sticking points remained around the issue of territory and who would manage the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which Russia captured in the opening phases of its full-scale invasion in 2022.
The Ukrainian leader previously said he would be ready to withdraw “heavy forces” from a possible “demilitarised zone”, or “economic zone” in eastern Ukraine, provided Russian forces mirrored the pullback. But he said on Monday there was “no detailed concept” about the potential zones.
“It is no secret that Russia wants this, in their fantasies they would like us not to exist on the territory of our own country at all,” Mr Zelenskiy said. “But we have our own land, our own territorial integrity, our own state and our own interests. We will act in accordance with the interests of Ukraine.” – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025