WASHINGTON — President Trump told The Post that he’s optimistic about finally securing a peace deal when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visits his Mar-a-Lago club on Sunday.
“Well, I think we have a good shot at it,” Trump told The Post in a Friday afternoon phone call.
“I think they want to do it now, and I think that Russia wants to do it. But every time one wants to do it, the other doesn’t,” Trump said.
“I settled eight wars, and this is the most difficult of them all. But I think we’ll get it done.”
Zelensky is bringing with him a new 20-point peace proposal — a variation on the 28-point plan drafted in November by Trump’s negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
The latest counter-proposal from Kyiv calls for demilitarized “free economic zone” and has been met with silence so far from Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose top demand has been Ukraine relinquishing the remaining heavily fortified north of the Donetsk region.
“It has been agreed to continue the dialogue,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday.
Trump told Politico in a separate interview Friday that he’s not yet endorsing Zelensky’s plan.
“He doesn’t have anything until I approve it. So we’ll see what he’s got,” Trump said.
Zelensky told Axios Friday that he is “ready” to call a referendum to affirm territorial concessions to Russia as part of a peace plan.
The US president has alternated between optimism and exasperation for months, at points admitting he was on the cusp of throwing up his hands and letting the eastern European states fight among themselves.
Trump left an August meeting with Putin in Alaska believing peace was within reach as the Russian dictator indicated a willingness to accept the presence of international peacekeepers from countries such as France and the UK.
Putin then balked at a bilateral summit with Zelensky, as Trump had requested, throwing the progress again off the rails.
Russia has steadily but slowly eaten away at Ukrainian-controlled territory, incurring heavily casualties.
Zelensky’s negotiating team, meanwhile, experienced a shakeup in late Novermber as his longtime lieutenant Andrey Yermak, viewed by many US officials as difficult to deal with, resigned amid a corruption investigation.
Russia launched its invasion in February 2022 after annexing the Crimean peninsula and backing pro-Russia separatists beginning in 2014.
The setting of Trump’s upcoming meeting with Zelensky — at the president’s prized estate in Palm Beach — could distinguish Zelensky’s trip from prior visits to the White House.
Trump is known for playing the gracious host for world leaders and using the palatial venue as a backdrop to efforts to influence his guests. He’ll be hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago on Monday to discuss progress on the Gaza peace plan.
The president often recounts a 2017 visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom he served a decadent dessert before delivering news about just-conducted airstrikes on Syria in a demonstration of military power.
“We had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you’ve ever seen and President Xi was enjoying it,” Trump remembered a short time afterward. “He was eating his cake. And he was silent.”
