WASHINGTON, DC – US President Donald Trump used a glitzy Kennedy Center Honors red carpet Sunday night to deliver a decidedly unglamorous message: he’s losing patience with Volodymyr Zelensky.
In classic Trump fashion – part pressure, part performative disappointment – the president told reporters he’s “not sure Zelensky is fine with” the US-drafted peace plan aimed at ending the nearly four-year Russo-Ukrainian War. Zelensky, Trump said, “hasn’t yet read the proposal,” even though “his people love it” and “Russia is fine with it.”
Whether Trump was referring to the much-debated 28-point draft – derided by some as a Russian “wish list” – or to a new iteration of the US proposal remains unclear. But the frustration was unmistakable – and intentional, according to diplomats tracking the process.
“Trump is signaling to Zelensky that the clock is ticking and Washington wants movement,” one Western diplomat told Kyiv Post Sunday night, adding: “But he’s also broadcasting to Moscow that he’s willing to lean hard on Kyiv – and that’s raising eyebrows in European capitals.”
Peace process under strain
The latest burst of Trump commentary comes after US and Ukrainian negotiators wrapped three days of talks in Florida, which Zelensky later described as “constructive, although not easy.”
Kyiv’s team – Rustem Umerov and Andriy Hnatov – met with US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. The pair had also held a rare direct exchange with Vladimir Putin days earlier, prompting the Kremlin to suggest some American proposals had been “accepted.”
But Moscow’s public line has remained defiantly uncompromising. Putin’s foreign-policy aide Yuri Ushakov said Sunday the US plan would require “radical changes,” particularly on territorial concessions in the Donbas and the fate of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant – issues Zelensky has repeatedly labeled immutable red lines.
Ukraine, he insists, “will not hand over land in exchange for peace,” warning that concessions now would only green-light future Russian offensives.
Yet Trump continues to push Kyiv toward a deal that, in its early form, envisioned Ukraine surrendering both Donetsk and Luhansk.
On Saturday, outgoing US envoy Keith Kellogg said negotiations were “in the last 10 meters,” hinging almost entirely on Donbas and Zaporizhzhia – an assessment many allies view as optimistic at best.
“One gets the sense the White House wants a deal faster than the region can deliver one,” another European diplomat told Kyiv Post. “Everyone sees the urgency – but not everyone agrees with the timetable or the tradeoffs.”
Zelensky’s balancing act
Zelensky spent the weekend insisting Ukraine remains committed to “good-faith” negotiations, while warning European leaders – including Italy’s Giorgia Meloni – that there is “still work to be done to ensure that Russia genuinely commits to ending the war.”
On Monday, he is set to meet with the UK’s Keir Starmer, France’s Emmanuel Macron, and Germany’s Friedrich Merz in London for what European officials describe as an “alignment check.”
At the same time, British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper will be in Washington meeting US Secretary of State Marco Rubio – part of what London calls a coordinated effort to “reaffirm commitment to a just and lasting peace.”
Diplomatic translation: don’t box Kyiv into a deal it cannot sell to its public.
Moscow, meanwhile, has greeted Trump’s new national security strategy with notable warmth. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov praised the document’s emphasis on dialogue and said Moscow hopes it leads to “constructive cooperation” – an unusual display of enthusiasm that set off alarms in NATO circles.
“Any time the Kremlin expresses satisfaction with US policy, Europe takes notice – and not in a good way,” said a senior NATO diplomat, noting widespread unease over Trump’s insistence that repairing relations with Moscow is central to ending the war.
Shadow of Trump Jr. and messaging problem at home
Complicating the diplomatic choreography: Donald Trump Jr., who on Sunday suggested his father “may walk away from Ukraine,” accused Kyiv of corruption “far more widespread” than Russia’s – rhetoric that echoed Kremlin talking points and sent shudders through Kyiv and Europe.
Speaking at the Doha Forum, Trump’s eldest son said bluntly: “I think he may,” when asked whether his father could abandon Ukraine.
A Western official told Kyiv Post that any hint the US might walk away – even from a family member – “reverberates instantly on the battlefield.”
Yuriy Boyechko, head of the US-based humanitarian group Hope for Ukraine, called Trump Jr.’s framing “a dangerous political miscalculation,” noting that Americans – including many Republicans – still broadly support Ukraine’s defense.
“The idea that Ukraine’s corruption is the primary obstacle to peace or worse than Russia’s is a talking point that conveniently ignores reality,” Boyechko said.
While Ukraine struggles to root out wartime graft, he added, Russia “operates under a state-run kleptocracy,” where corruption is the organizing principle.
By equating the two, he said, Trump Jr. “unwittingly parrots a Kremlin propaganda line designed to erode Western resolve” and “minimizes the crime of invasion by fabricating a moral equivalency that simply doesn’t exist.”
Missiles, drones, and no break in the war
Even as negotiators wrangled over maps and nuclear plants, Russia launched another wave of missile, drone, and artillery attacks across Ukraine – killing at least four people, knocking out power and water in Kremenchuk, and striking energy infrastructure ahead of another brutal winter.
Kyiv sees the barrage as proof Moscow is still pursuing victory by attrition, not compromise.
Despite the mixed messaging, Western diplomats say diplomacy is entering a decisive phase – one in which Zelensky must show flexibility without crossing red lines, Russia must stop stalling, and Trump must decide whether he wants a historic settlement or simply another headline.
“Everyone’s circling the landing zone, but no one’s quite ready to put the wheels down,” a Western official said, adding that the negotiations are no longer about whether peace is possible, but whether the political incentives in Washington, Kyiv, and Moscow can align long enough to make it real.
Right now, those incentives are wobbling.
And in this high-wire moment – with allies on edge, adversaries testing limits, and the clock ticking loudly – all three capitals know the world is watching. The only question is which one will blink first.