Ukraine touts Trump-Zelenskyy meeting to finalize Russia peace deal this week

Ukraine said Tuesday that it was hoping to finalize a deal with President Donald Trump in the coming days, as the United States intensified its new push to end Russia’s war.

Kyiv and its allies voiced optimism that talks with an American delegation had produced changes to the plan, which they initially viewed as granting the Kremlin its core demands at the expense of Ukraine and Europe. Moscow said that it was still waiting to receive the latest version of the proposal.

Even as both warring sides exchanged deadly overnight strikes, a senior Ukrainian official said that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy could soon fly to the U.S. and meet with Trump to reach a deal, though the White House had said there was no meeting scheduled.

“We appreciate the productive and constructive meetings held in Geneva between the Ukrainian and U.S. delegations, as well as President Trump’s steadfast efforts to end the war,” Rustem Umerov, a top official in Zelenskyy’s government, said in a post on X early Tuesday.

Umerov said the delegations reached “a common understanding on the core terms of the agreement discussed in Geneva.”

He added: “We look forward to organizing a visit of Ukraine’s President to the U.S. at the earliest suitable date in November to complete final steps and make a deal with President Trump.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday that there was no meeting scheduled between Trump and Zelenskyy this week.

Ukraine is facing immense pressure from Trump to endorse a plan by Thanksgiving.

Zelenskyy mirrored optimism expressed by the U.S. after diplomatic talks in Geneva, saying late Monday that “the list of necessary steps to end the war can become doable.”

Zelenskyy said there were now fewer points in the plan than the original 28 that were leaked to the media last week. “And many of the right elements have been taken into account in this framework,” he said, adding that he would discuss the most “sensitive issues” with Trump.

It was unclear how those changes may be viewed by the Kremlin, amid reports that a U.S. delegation was holding talks with Russian and Ukrainian officials in Abu Dhabi.

Moscow maintained that it had not been handed an official version of the peace plan.

“We still have nothing to say,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday, asked about the meeting first reported by the Financial Times newspaper, which cited a U.S. official and two people familiar with the meeting.

NBC News has not confirmed the report.

“We have channels of communication with our American colleagues, and they are being used,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters Tuesday. “And we expect them to present a version they consider interim in terms of completing the phase of coordinating this text with the Europeans and Ukrainians.”

European leaders scrambled to respond to the plan last week, fearing Kyiv could be forced into concessions that would embolden Vladimir Putin, but sounded more positive about the initiative after talks in Geneva.

French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday that Trump’s plan was headed in the right direction but that there were aspects that needed to be discussed and improved to make it acceptable for Ukraine and Europe.

“We want peace, but we don’t want a peace that would be a capitulation,” he said.

Meanwhile, civilian casualties were reported on each side early Tuesday as Russia pressed ahead with its war.

In Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said at least six people were killed and another 14 injured in a Russian attack that left damage and falling debris in 13 different areas of the capital.

Russian officials said three people were killed and 10 more injured in an overnight aerial attack they blamed on Ukraine in the city of Taganrog, in the border Rostov region.