Trump says he sees 'the makings of a deal' to end Ukraine-Russia war

President Donald Trump met with his Ukraine counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, at Mar-a-Lago on Dec. 28 as the two men sought to hammer out a plan to end the nearly four-year-old war on the European continent.

Trump said the gathering at his Palm Beach estate was a "terrific meeting" in which both parties "discussed a lot of things."

"I just want to say we've done very well. We've had discussions on just about every subject," the U.S. president said.

But as to when a peace agreement might materialize, Trump was noncommittal, saying he does not have "deadlines."

Nonetheless, the optimism seemed to have been dampened during a Dec. 29 phone call in which Russian leader Vladimir Putin complained to the U.S. president that Ukrainian forces had attacked one of his personal residences.

Speaking with reporters at Mar-a-Lago, Trump said "it would not be good" if the claim were true. Overall, the president said, his talk with Putin earlier that morning was "a very productive talk."

"I mean, we have a few very thorny issues, as you can imagine," Trump said. "We have a couple of issues that we're going to get resolved, hopefully, and if we get it resolved, you're going to have peace."

Trump, Zelenskyy avoided public feuding in Palm Beach meeting

At Mar-a-Lago, Zelenskyy, who has had a fractious relationship with Trump throughout 2025, sounded equally promising.

"We discussed all the aspects of the peace plan," he said, adding there was "almost" an agreement on U.S. security that the Ukrainians have insisted is pivotal to the country's prospects for peace.

The two men even joked with each other, with Trump relaying how Zelenskyy commented about how nice Mar-a-Lago is. Trump then quipped that Zelenskyy might not want to go back to the White House, but the Ukrainian interjected he would indeed like to return to the White House, and they both laughed.

Their meeting was the first of two that Trump had scheduled with key international leaders this week at Mar-a-Lago. Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, was set to meet with the president at 1 p.m. on Dec. 29.

Trump is spending the Christmas and New Year's holidays at Mar-a-Lago and is expected to return to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 4.

Trump: 'We have the makings of a deal'

A few hours earlier, Trump had greeted Zelensky outside the main entrance to the club. The president said a deal to end the conflict has to "get done" and added: "I do believe that we have the makings of a deal."

In the evening, Zelenskyy thanked Trump for the meeting and sounded an optimistic tone.

"We had a substantive discussion on all issues, and we much appreciate the progress achieved by American and Ukrainian teams in recent weeks," the Ukrainian leader wrote in a social-media post.

"We discussed all the aspects of the peace framework and achieved significant results. We also discussed the sequence of further actions. We agreed that security guarantees are key on the path to achieving a lasting peace, and our teams will continue working on all aspects."

Zelenskyy also revealed that diplomatic teams would meet again in a week or so and that Trump will "host Ukrainian and European leaders in Washington, D.C., in January."

Reporters traveling with the president said Trump left Mar-a-Lago just after 6 p.m. for Trump International Golf Club, near Palm Beach International Airport. But he returned to Mar-a-Lago at about 7:30 p.m. No explanation was given for the outing, but the reporters said they saw the Ukrainian president’s aircraft still stationed at PBIA.

Trump, Zelenskyy talk details of Ukraine-Russia peace accord

Prior to the late morning of Dec. 28, the U.S. president had not commented publicly on social media about his gathering with Zelenskyy. But just before noon, Trump posted that he held a “good and very productive telephone call with President Putin of Russia.”

Shortly afterward, Zelensky arrived at Mar-a-Lago and he and Trump briefly answered questions from reporters.

The agreement, Trump said, would include security agreements and begin the effort to rebuild the war-torn country. The president noted the numerous other conflicts he said his administration has ended and noted the challenges to bringing the Ukraine bloodshed to a finish.

"This is the most difficult one, but we're going to get it done," he said, and noted he would brief Putin again after his talks with Zelenskyy had concluded.

Zelensky, who is bidding to win solid support for a 20-point peace plan, thanked the U.S. president for inviting him to the Palm Beach club and expressed hope the conversations will "bring peace as quick as possible."

The invitation to meet in Trump's gilded Palm Beach estate brings to full circle the flinty and volatile relationship Trump and Zelenskyy have had as leaders on the world stage.

The two first crossed paths after the Ukrainian leader's presidential election win in 2019. In the telephone call that led to Trump's first impeachment, the president asked Ukraine's new leader to launch a corruption investigation against the family of President Joe Biden, who defeated Trump in the 2020 election. Zelenskyy did not agree.

Trump softens tone toward Zelenskyy but not Europe, NATO

When the two again met in the White House in February, a month after Trump's second inauguration, he berated Zelenskyy for calling for security guarantees in a globally televised Oval Office encounter. Trump also referred to Zelenskyy, viewed as heroic by many, as a "dictator" in a Miami Beach speech.

Since then, however, the president moderated his tone toward Zelenskyy, who on Dec. 27 met with Canada Prime Minister John Carney and has spent weeks meeting with Ukraine's allies in Europe.

Outside Mar-a-Lago, Trump praised Zelenskyy and Ukraine's fighting spirit.

“This gentleman has worked very hard, and he’s very brave, and his people are very brave. What they’ve gone through, no nation, very rarely has a nation ever had to go through this,” Trump said standing next to Zelenskyy.

Nonetheless, during a Dec. 22 news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Trump again voiced his distaste and displeasure with the unresolved war on the European continent.

The president said he viewed U.S. support for the embattled eastern European country as a weapons transaction, saying "we don't lose money in that war anymore" in rebuking the Biden administration's policy of arming Ukraine against the Russian invasion.

"We now sell missiles, planes, all of the best military equipment. We sell it to NATO," Trump said.

The president added he forced NATO countries to commit higher percentages of their spending budgets to military purchases of weapons and equipment. Those purchases include, Trump said, weapons for Ukraine.

"Now, we sell weapons to NATO. We sell full price. We sell weapons to NATO, and NATO takes those weapons and probably distributes them, but gives a lot of them to Ukraine," he said. "So we don't lose any money like we did with Biden."

Trump: Zelensky-Putin hostility an obstacle to ending war

Trump also stated he believed an impediment to peace has been the hostility Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin harbor for each other, and expressed frustration that the conflict has not been put to an end after nearly four years of bloodshed.

"Everyone's tired of that war," he said. "It's got to stop."

Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at afins@pbpost.com.