{"id":253100,"date":"2025-12-26T23:09:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T23:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/253100\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T23:09:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T23:09:09","slug":"zelenskiy-doesnt-have-anything-until-i-approve-it-says-trump-ahead-of-meeting-on-sunday-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/253100\/","title":{"rendered":"Zelenskiy \u2018doesn\u2019t have anything until I approve it\u2019, says Trump ahead of meeting on Sunday \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

US president Donald Trump<\/a>, ahead of \u200dan expected weekend meeting \u200dwith Volodymyr Zelenskiy<\/a>, has said that the Ukrainian president \u201cdoesn\u2019t have \u200canything until I approve it\u201d.<\/p>\n

In an interview with Politico published on Friday, Mr Trump was quoted as saying: \u201cHe doesn\u2019t have anything \u200cuntil I \u200dapprove it. So we\u2019ll see what he\u2019s got.\u201d <\/p>\n

The president \u200dbelieved he could have a productive meeting.<\/p>\n

Mr Zelenskiy will discuss territorial issues, the main stumbling block in \u200ctalks to \u200cend Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine<\/a>, with Mr Trump \u200cin Florida on Sunday, as a 20-point peace framework and a security guarantees deal near completion.<\/p>\n

Announcing the meeting earlier on Friday, Mr Zelenskiy said that \u201ca \u200dlot can be decided before the new year\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs for the sensitive issues: we will discuss both Donbas and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. We will certainly discuss other issues as well,\u201d he told reporters in a WhatsApp chat.<\/p>\n

Russia wants Ukraine to withdraw \u200cfrom the parts of the eastern Donetsk region that its troops have failed to occupy during almost four years of war, as it seeks full control of the Donbas, comprising the Donetsk \u2060and Luhansk regions. Kyiv wants fighting to be halted at current battle lines.<\/p>\n

\"AA priest stands before the Memorial for the Fallen Ukrainian and Foreign Fighters on the Independence Square in Kyiv on December 26th. Photograph: AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

The US, seeking a compromise, proposed a free economic zone if \u200cUkraine \u200bleaves \u200dthe area. It remained unclear how that zone would function in practical terms.<\/p>\n

Territorial issues remain a hurdle to negotiations moving forward. Any compromises on territory should be decided by the Ukrainian people in a potential referendum, Mr Zelenskiy said.<\/p>\n

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe\u2019s biggest, is located on the front line and controlled by Russian forces.<\/p>\n

Mr Zelenskiy added his meeting with Mr Trump aimed to \u201crefine things\u201d in the drafts and discuss potential deals on Ukraine\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n

He said he was not ready to \u2060say if any deal would be signed during his visit, \u2060but Ukraine was open to it.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0How Russia recruits Ukrainians to attack their own countryOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

A security guarantees agreement between Ukraine and the US was \u201calmost ready\u201d and the 20-point plan draft was at 90 per cent completion, Mr Zelenskiy added.<\/p>\n

Wary of failed guarantees from allies in the past, Ukraine is seeking robust and \u200dlegally-binding deals to prevent any further Russian aggression.<\/p>\n

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump, who has at times expressed frustration with the slow pace of progress in the negotiations, previously suggested he would meet Mr Zelenskiy if he felt that a major diplomatic advance was possible.<\/p>\n

European leaders might join the talks online, said Mr Zelenskiy. On Friday, he discussed \u201csignificant progress\u201d in peace efforts with Finland\u2019s president Alexander Stubb.<\/p>\n

It was not clear which peace plan proposals Moscow would be willing to accept.<\/p>\n

Mr Putin\u2019s foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, spoke with members of the Trump administration after Moscow received US proposals about a possible peace deal, the Kremlin said on Friday.<\/p>\n

When \u200casked how Moscow viewed the documents, \u200cKremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he did not want to comment as Russia felt making remarks in public could undermine the negotiations.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0From city hall to house arrest: fall of Odesa\u2019s mayor exposes Ukraine power strugglesOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s Kommersant newspaper reported that Mr Putin told some of Russia\u2019s top businessmen he might be open to swapping some territory controlled by Russian \u200cforces elsewhere in Ukraine, but that in exchange he wanted the whole of the Donbas.<\/p>\n

Even as the talks proceeded, Russia continued hammering Ukraine\u2019s energy infrastructure and stepped up attacks on \u2060the southern region of Odesa, the site of Ukraine\u2019s main seaports. On Friday, a Russian attack on the northeastern city of Kharkiv killed two.<\/p>\n

Mr Zelenskiy said he planned to raise the issue of placing additional pressure on Russia with Mr Trump. \u2013 Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US president Donald Trump, ahead of \u200dan expected weekend meeting \u200dwith Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said that the Ukrainian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,356,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,550,7,8,2264,2267,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-253100","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-latest-news","15":"tag-latestnews","16":"tag-main-news","17":"tag-mainnews","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-russia","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-topstories","22":"tag-ukraine-crisis","23":"tag-volodymyr-zelenskiy","24":"tag-world","25":"tag-world-news","26":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}