The much-anticipated talks lasted two-and-a-half hours, and that’s an achievement in itself. Presidents Trump and Zelensky had never before spent this long in one room, negotiating.
Afterwards, optimism was much on display at Mar-a-Lago. It was a “terrific meeting”, according to Donald Trump. Volodymyr Zelensky agreed, describing it as a “great meeting” with “great discussions on all the topics”.
But even if the two presidents sounded more upbeat than before, yet again we did not hear any evidence of progress – just like after all the previous talks held this year.
There is still no answer to the key question of whether Ukraine will have to give up territory in exchange for a promise of peace. This is one of the main demands put forward by Russia and apparently backed by the US, so the fact that Zelensky has not accepted it – at least not in public – counts as good news for Ukraine. He did appear to leave the possibility of territorial concessions open, however, by saying that a referendum may be held to approve any deals to end the war.
There is also no clarity on another crucial issue: security guarantees. Even though President Zelensky says they were “100%” agreed with the US, we do not know what they are and whether they would be enough to deter Russia from attacking Ukraine again.
No less importantly, regardless of what agreements presidents Trump and Zelensky may have reached, there is no reason to assume that Russia would accept them. In fact, it has already rejected key ideas floated immediately before the talks in Florida: that a ceasefire be declared and a multinational force be deployed to Ukraine to monitor it.
And this begs the question of what Donald Trump is prepared to do should Russia reject his agreements with Volodymyr Zelensky. So far, it has been the Ukrainian leader who has borne the brunt of his pressure, irritation and anger. Donald Trump’s continuing positive rhetoric about Vladimir Putin (who, the US president said today, is “serious” about peace and “wants to see Ukraine succeed”) suggests that this is unlikely to change.
At the end of the day, all this means that despite Donald Trump’s and Volodymyr Zelensky’s optimism, we’ve seen little indication that lasting peace will prevail in Ukraine any time soon.