Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, Donald Trump, and their delegations at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, December 28, 2025
EA on RTE: What’s Next for Ukraine After Zelensky-Trump Meeting in Florida
Sunday’s Coverage: Zelensky Holds The Line as Trump Praises Putin
UPDATE 0648 GMT:
The head of Estonia’s foreign intelligence service says Russia has stepped back from its destabilizing operations into other countries, following resistance by those states and NATO.
Kaupo Rosin said, “We’ve seen that, as a result of our responses, Russia has altered its behavior following various incidents that have occurred more broadly in the region. So far, it’s still clear that Russia respects NATO and is currently trying to avoid any open conflict.”
Referring to Russia’s drone and fighter jet incursions into the airspaces of NATO members and its threat to undersea cables, Rosin summarized:
Russia has taken various measures to prevent such incidents from happening again in the future.
If we look at the current situation, including what’s visible to the public, the drone flight paths over Ukrainian territory or airspace have been adjusted to minimize risk. We’re also seeing that Russian aircraft are now very carefully monitoring their flight paths over the Baltic Sea, strictly adhering to their trajectories to avoid triggering incidents.
UPDATE 0624 GMT:
Bridget Brink, the former US Ambassador to Ukraine, has firmly dismissed the Kremlin’s declaration that Kyiv attacked the residence of Vladimir Putin.
Seeking political advantage after Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky’s meeting with Donald Trump, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov proclaimed that Kyiv tried to strike the resident in Novgorod, south of St. Petersburg.
Brink, the US ambassdor in Kyiv from 2022, left the post in April as she criticized the Trump Administration’s approach.
She told CNN:
There’s no evidence that there was a strike. And the fact that the US President is taking the word of a brutal dictator, over that of our democratic ally, is exactly the problem.
And that’s exactly why I had to resign and speak out.
Zelensky explained that the Russian claim is an attempt to undermine progress in negotiations to end Moscow’s invasion, and he noted that the Russians could be preparing the ground to strike government buildings in Kyiv.
But Donald Trump took the Kremlin’s bait: “I don’t like it. It’s not good. I heard about it this morning … President Putin told me about it….He said he was attacked, it’s no good…..I was very angry about it.”
ORIGINAL ENTRY: President Volodymyr Zelensky has emphasized that Ukraine will not withdraw from its territory as part of a deal to end Russia’s 47-month full-scale invasion.
Following his Sunday meeting with Donald Trump in Florida, Zelensky spoke with the Trumpist outlet Fox TV. He responded to Russia’s demands — and a Kremlin ultimatum crafted with Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, pushed back by Ukraine-Europe counter-proposals:
We can’t just withdraw, it’s out of our law.
It’s not only the law. People live there, 300,000 people… We can’t lose those people.
Ukraine and Europe have proposed a demilitarized economic zone in the strategic Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, with Ukrainian and Russian troops both pulling back. Zelensky’s talks with Trump were inconclusive, and the Kremlin has insisted that it will seize all of Donetsk through capitulation or force.
“I’m Thankful to President Trump”
Zelensky noted that Russia’s seizure of less than 1% of Ukrainian territory this year has come at the cost of around 400,000 Russian casualties.
With Ukraine and Europe working with those in a split Trump Administration maintaining support for defense of Kyiv, Zelensky played up to Trump in the Fox interview.
“I’m thankful to President Trump, really, it was a very productive meeting and in Mar-a-Lago maybe another mood here,” the President said. He added that Ukraine cannot defeat the Russian invasion without US involvement: “Sanctions, dialogue, [Trump] has some instruments….Without American support, we can’t defend the sky.”
The US and Ukraine differ on the duration of security guarantees, with Trump accepting 15 years and Kyiv and Europe wanting up to 50. However, Zelensky emphasized the advance of getting Washington to make a commitment.
“Today we spoke with the President and there is a proposition. The first proposition is a security guarantees for 15 years,” he said. “It’s good proposition with possibility of continuation.”
