LONDON — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and senior European leaders presented a unified image Monday after President Donald Trump appeared to criticize the Ukrainian leader amid pressure for Kyiv to accept painful concessions to end the war with Russia.
Flanked by the leaders of France, Germany and the United Kingdom at the British Prime Minister’s Office on Downing Street in London, Zelenskyy said unity between Ukraine, the U.S. and Europe was paramount.
“We need to make some important decisions,” he added, without elaborating what those were. The Ukrainian leader was in London to rally support from his European allies, as leaders on the continent scramble for a seat at the negotiating table.
The London meetings followed Trump’s comments over the weekend appearing to criticize the Ukrainian leader.
Speaking to reporters Sunday about the next step in the negotiations, Trump said he was “a little bit disappointed that President Zelenskyy hasn’t yet read the proposal.” It was unclear exactly which version of the peace plan Trump was referencing.
Zelenskyy’s office did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment about Trump’s comments.
“His people love it. But he hasn’t. Russia is fine with it,” Trump said on the Kennedy Center Honors red carpet in Washington.
Trump approved a 28-point peace plan to end the war that included Ukraine ceding its territory, among other demands seen as favoring Russia. The plan appears to have undergone several changes after intense pushback from Kyiv and Europe.
“You know, Russia … I guess would rather have the whole country when you think of it,” Trump said. “But Russia is, I believe, fine with it, but I’m not sure Zelenskyy is fine with it. His people love it, but he hasn’t read it.”
Despite Trump’s suggestion that Moscow was “fine” with the most up-to-date version of the deal, the Kremlin has indicated otherwise.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said Sunday that the American side would have to make “radical changes” to the draft on “some issues.”
Russia has not publicly backed off of hard-line demands that would see Kyiv cede much of one-fifth of the country that Russia currently holds and hobble it militarily for the foreseeable future. Zelenskyy said Monday that negotiators were still split over the core issues of territorial concessions and security guarantees.
After flying to Moscow with a revised version of the proposal, Trump’s team held talks with Ukrainian officials in Miami, but the push from Washington has so far failed to yield a breakthrough.
Zelenskyy said in his nightly address Sunday that he had spoken with Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner, who held five hours of talks with Putin in Moscow last week.
In a separate interview Monday, Zelenskyy said elements of the U.S. plan required further discussion on a number of “sensitive issues.” There was still no “unified” view on the fate of the Donbas, the industrial eastern region that Putin wants in its entirety even though it’s still under partial Ukrainian control, he told Bloomberg News.
Zelenskyy’s top negotiator said he would brief the Ukrainian leader Monday following the latest round of talks.
“The primary task of the Ukrainian team was to obtain from the American side complete information about their conversation in Moscow and all drafts of current proposals in order to discuss them in detail with the President of Ukraine,” Rustem Umerov said in a post on X.
