PALM BEACH, Florida – The palm trees are swaying, the Secret Service is swarming, and the fate of Western security is migrating – at least for one afternoon – from the White House Situation Room to Mar-a-Lago’s gilded halls.
President Donald Trump is set to host Volodymyr Zelensky at his personal Palm Beach club on Sunday afternoon for a high-stakes sit-down that Kyiv hopes can lock in US security commitments and chart a credible path to ending Russia’s war.
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The choreography is deliberate. The stakes are existential.
Just 24 hours before the meeting, Moscow unleashed one of its largest aerial assaults in months – 559 drones and missiles detected across Ukraine, with Kyiv and the surrounding region bearing the brunt.
The barrage knocked out electricity, heat, and water for more than 500,000 families, serving as what one Western diplomat privately described as a kinetic veto – Vladimir Putin’s blunt reminder that peace talks without Moscow come with a cost.
The timing was no coincidence. Zelensky himself described the attack as Russia’s “answer” to diplomatic efforts.
Sunday’s meeting, rescheduled to an earlier 1:00 p.m. start time, is now the focal point of a weekend that has turned West Palm Beach into a temporary hub of wartime diplomacy.
Guests at the table
The attendee list reads like a crossover between a corporate takeover and a wartime cabinet.
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On the US side, Trump will be flanked by two of his most trusted dealmakers: Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, the special envoy who has quietly handled sensitive international files for the US president. Other members of the administration are expected to join, though officials declined to provide a full roster.
Across the table, Zelensky has brought a deep bench. His delegation includes his top negotiator Rustem Umerov, Economy Minister Oleksii Sobolev, Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Andriy Hnatov, and other heavyweights, underscoring that this is not merely a symbolic visit, but a working session with legal, economic, and military consequences.
Yet the most consequential participants may not be physically in the room.
Zelensky is expected to beam in what Ukrainian officials have dubbed a digital “European front,” via video conference from Mar-a-Lago.
Among the leaders expected to join remotely: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and others.
The message to Trump is unmistakable: Ukraine is not negotiating in a vacuum – and Europe intends to be a stakeholder in whatever emerges from Palm Beach.
The 20-point gambit
At the heart of the talks is a 20-point Ukrainian framework that Zelensky says is “90 percent complete.”
Sunday’s objective is to close the remaining gaps and present Washington with a unified package that can later be taken – at least in theory – to Moscow.
Zelensky has outlined five core pillars for the bilateral meeting: US security guarantees, European security guarantees, Ukraine’s so-called “prosperity package,” the military situation on the ground, and a step-by-step roadmap for implementing any agreements reached.
The prosperity package includes proposals for postwar reconstruction, long-term investment, and a potential US-Ukraine free trade agreement.
The security component remains the most sensitive: Kyiv is seeking ironclad guarantees that fall somewhere between NATO membership and a bilateral Mutual Defense Treaty with the US.
Ukrainian officials say several bilateral agreements are already finalized and could be signed as early as Sunday, though Zelensky has been careful to temper expectations.
“I can’t say right now whether anything will be finalized by then,” he said Friday. Asked directly whether he is ready to sign a deal with the US, Zelensky answered simply: “Yes.”
The results of Sunday’s talks, Ukrainian officials say, would then be shared with Russia – a sequencing that has drawn skepticism from lawmakers and analysts who argue Moscow is unlikely to honor a framework it did not help negotiate.
View from the bridge
While motorcades glide toward Mar-a-Lago, a different kind of diplomacy will unfold a few miles away, at the foot of the Southern Boulevard Bridge connecting West Palm Beach to Palm Beach.
At around noon, the Ukrainian Association of Florida, in partnership with Ukrainian community leaders from across the state, plans to hold a peaceful rally expected to draw between 50 and 200 people.
If access to the bridge is restricted, demonstrators will gather at its western foot, along the Intracoastal Waterway.
Their message is pointed and deliberately legalistic: peace, not surrender.
Dmytro Bozhko, the founder of the Ukrainian Association of Florida, whose native Donetsk has been under Russian occupation since 2014, says the rally’s goal is to make clear that any deal must adhere to international law.
“The main idea is that we cannot break the law,” Bozhko told Kyiv Post Saturday night. “It’s already written. It’s already signed by everybody. Recognized borders, territorial integrity, international treaties – this is not something new.”
The rally’s demands include a legally binding Mutual Defense Treaty between the US and Ukraine, the immediate return of Ukraine’s roughly 20,000 abducted children, and a settlement that refuses to legitimize Russian occupation of Ukrainian land.
Security guarantees, Bozhko said, are non-negotiable.
“We cannot trust Russia,” he said, adding, “My native city has been occupied since 2014. We saw multiple treaties and agreements with Russia, and they broke everything without proper enforcement. They will do nothing.”
Bozhko described a community both mobilized and anxious. Many Ukrainian residents in Florida, he noted, are hesitant to attend public demonstrations because of precarious immigration statuses.
“They are afraid of being visible,” he said. “It’s not as critical as the war in Ukraine, but for local people, it matters.”
Still, he argued, staying silent is no longer an option – especially with global diplomacy unfolding in their backyard.
“It’s not something we wanted,” Bozhko said of West Palm Beach becoming a hub of Ukraine diplomacy. “But since we are here, we cannot just sit and observe. We have to act. We have to help people in power see what the right decision is.”
And for Trump, the ask is starkly simple. “The only thing we’re asking,” Bozhko said, “is to do the right thing and to follow the law.”
Skeptics’ corner
Not everyone believes a deal shaped in Palm Beach can survive a winter in the Donbas.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), co-chair of the bipartisan Ukraine Caucus, issued a blunt warning Saturday as missiles fell on Kyiv.
“A serious peace cannot be built on trust in a tyrant who has never kept his word,” Fitzpatrick wrote, arguing that any agreement lacking enforcement mechanisms would merely “defer the next phase” of the war.
Yuriy Boyechko, CEO and founder of the humanitarian group Hope for Ukraine, was even more direct, calling the proposed framework a “political abstraction” so long as Putin remains absent and actively escalating the conflict.
“Peace is not achieved by one side agreeing to terms with a third party,” Boyechko told Kyiv Post, adding, “As long as Russia is launching its heaviest attacks in months, it is signaling it has no intention of honoring a deal it did not sign.”
What to watch
Zelensky arrives in Florida seeking a partner, a guarantor, and a backstop against Russian revisionism. Trump, ever the dealmaker, has made clear he wants leverage – and a conversation with Putin.
“I expect to speak with him soon, as much as I want,” Trump told local media on Friday.
Whether that conversation leads to deterrence – or accommodation – may define not just Ukraine’s future, but Europe’s security order.
The takeaway heading into Sunday: Zelensky is looking for guarantees, Trump is looking for a deal, and Putin is looking for a surrender.
Only one of them can leave Mar-a-Lago satisfied.
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