Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia on Monday of trying to sabotage peace talks and preparing to bomb government buildings after the Kremlin said it had foiled a Ukrainian drone attack on Vladimir Putin’s residence.
Zelenskyy described the Russian claim as “another lie”. He said he was “expecting” some kind of scandal following his two-hour meeting on Sunday with Donald Trump in Florida, where “progress” was made towards ending the conflict.
“They do not want to finish this war,” he said. He warned that a Russian strike on government complexes in the capital was now probable, similar to a bombing in September of the cabinet ministers’ building in central Kyiv.
Earlier, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, claimed Ukraine had tried to hit Putin’s residence in the Novgorod region, south of St Petersburg. As a result Moscow’s negotiating position would be reviewed, he said.
Lavrov said Russian air defences shot down 91 incoming drones. “Such reckless actions will not go unanswered,” he added, denouncing what he called “state terrorism”. Targets for retaliatory strikes against Ukraine had already been selected, he said.
The Kremlin’s latest bellicose threat appeared to be part of an informational campaign directed both at Russians and an impressionable White House. Lavrov’s deputy, Alexander Grushko, alleged that Britain was also behind what he described as “provocations”.
Earlier Zelenskyy said the US had offered “strong” security guarantees to Ukraine for 15 years, but acknowledged that the future of the country’s eastern Donbas region was unresolved after talks with Trump at the US president’s Mar-a-Lago residence.
Speaking on his way back to Europe, Zelenskyy said the US Congress and Ukraine’s parliament would jointly vote on American pledges. These were a key part of a 20-point peace plan discussed with the US president at his Mar-a-Lago residence, he said.
The guarantees are seen by Kyiv as crucial to deter further Russian aggression in the event of a peace deal. Zelenskyy admitted that previous promises – including the US and UK-backed 1994 Budapest memorandum guaranteeing Ukraine’s borders – “did not work”.
The details of the latest US commitments remain unclear. Trump has ruled out deploying peacekeeping troops. Zelenskyy said the presence of international monitors in a postwar Ukraine was the best form of security and would provide reassurance to the country’s citizens.
Ukraine’s president added: “We would really like the guarantees to be longer. I told him [Trump] that we would like to consider guarantees for 30, 40, or even 50 years, and that would be a historic decision by President Trump. The president said he would think about it.”
At a joint press conference on Sunday evening Trump claimed a deal to end the war was “closer than ever”. In reality, the two sides remain far apart, with the Kremlin insisting on Monday that Ukraine had to withdraw its troops from a “fortress belt” of cities in Donetsk oblast.
Vladimir Putin’s press spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said if Kyiv did not strike a deal it would lose more territory. He refused to comment on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, occupied by Moscow since its 2022 full-scale invasion and another sticking point in the negotiations.
Zelenskyy ruled out giving land to Russia. “It’s no secret Russia wants this. In their fantasies, they would like us not to exist on the territory of our own country at all,” he said. He instead proposed a demilitarised and free economic zone along the existing frontline, with both sides pulling back their troops.
The plan could be put to the Ukrainian people in a referendum, which would take place if Russia agreed to a ceasefire lasting for at least 60 days. Zelenskyy described a possible national vote as a “powerful tool” that would be an “expression of the Ukrainian people’s will”.
Trump spoke to European leaders on Sunday by video call from Mar-a-Lago. Zelenskyy said he expected to hold talks with them in Europe in the coming days, with a joint follow-up meeting with Trump likely to take place in January, probably at the White House.
Talks on Sunday between the US and Ukrainian delegations were “great” and “substantive”, Zelenskyy said.
Ukrainian commenters expressed relief on Monday that there was not a repeat at the Mar-a-Lago meeting of the humiliating scenes in February when Trump threw Zelenskyy out of the Oval Office.
But they were scathing about some of Trump’s remarks, including his dubious claim that “Russia wants to see a very successful Ukraine”. They noted that the US president refused to condemn the Kremlin’s large-scale air attack on Kyiv over the weekend, involving more than 500 drones, saying: “Ukraine has made very strong attacks as well.”
Maria Popova, an associate professor of political science at McGill University in Canada, said on Bluesky that Trump “sounded again like a Putin sock puppet” in his Mar-a-Lago press conference. She pointed out Trump had held a long phone call with Putin just ahead of his meeting with Zelenskyy, adding that the US president’s mind was “freshly full of Russian propaganda”.
