Trump's Day of Glory, Ukraine's week in the US, and prospects for peace talks
october 13, 2025 was a day of glory, a diplomatic triumph for US President Donald Trump. The political and legal confirmation of this was the signing of a ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip during the peace summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, and the first steps of practical implementation of this agreement even before it was signed.
No less important for Trump was the visualization of his peacekeeping victory at the Sharm el-Sheikh Peace Summit and in the Knesset (Israeli parliament). Apparently, this was a worthy satisfaction for him for not receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.
For us, another thing is important: success in the Middle East inspires Trump to new peacekeeping feats. And the US president has already announced that he will seek to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.
In fact, this work has already begun. This is evidenced by two telephone conversations between Presidents Trump and Zelensky on two consecutive days (October 11-12). This event, by the way, is unprecedented. Nothing like this has ever happened before in the history of US-Ukraine relations.
Trump is clearly accelerating the pace of the new negotiation process – this time over the Russian-Ukrainian war. Already during the signing of the peace agreement in Sharm el-Sheikh, it became known that President Zelenskyy was to arrive in Washington on Friday, October 17, to meet with the US president. It seems that Trump and Zelenskyy agreed on this during phone conversations on October 11-12 .
Interestingly, on October 10, Trump's favorite newspaper, The New York Post, published an interview with Ukraine's ambassador to the United States, Olga Stefanishyna. The title of this article is indicative: "Trump's Peace Push Marks 'Huge Shift' from the Biden Era". Such publications are one of the ways to reach out to Trump, to convey the Ukrainian position to him. And, as the events of recent weeks show, the systematic work of Ukrainian diplomacy with the US president and his administration is gradually yielding results .
This week can be called the week of Ukraine in the United States.
on October 13, our delegation, consisting of Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak, and Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Rustem Umerov, left for the United States. The main subject of negotiations of this delegation will be air defense systems, long-range weapons, and cooperation in the energy sector, which is very important for us now.
Of course, preparations will also be made for the meeting between Presidents Trump and Zelenskyy on October 17. By the way, this will be the sixth meeting between the leaders of the United States and Ukraine in the first nine months of Trump's second presidency, and the third in the White House. This is also unprecedented in the history of U.S.-Ukrainian relations .
It is highly likely that the meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy will focus on further prospects for negotiations to end the Russian-Ukrainian war. What to expect from this meeting and from further developments in the US-Ukraine-Russia triangle?
The most obvious scenario is a new surge in negotiation activity. Most likely, the United States will initially negotiate separately and in parallel with Ukraine and Russia. Therefore, in addition to Trump's meeting with Zelenskyy, we should expect the US president to have contacts with Putin. Trump has already announced this possibility. It is likely that it will be a phone conversation, but the Kremlin may also propose a face-to-face meeting between the leaders of the United States and Russia. The unrealized idea of a trilateral summit between the presidents of the United States, Ukraine, and Russia may resurface .
However, a traditional and very difficult problem will once again arise: on what terms should the war between Russia and Ukraine be ended? The Kremlin publicly insists on the need to fulfill some kind of "Anchorage agreement." However, no official agreements between the US and Russia were made public either during Trump's meeting with Putin in Alaska or afterward. And the United States does not confirm this. And Russia does not say anything specific about these "agreements.".
Just as importantly, Ukraine did not participate in the Alaska talks, and without our country's consent, there can be no talk of any peace agreements. This is not the first time that the Kremlin has passed off its own "wants" as "agreements". This is exactly how the Russian leadership interpreted the negotiations in Istanbul in 2022, and now the same tactic is being used to interpret the Alaska talks and the future vision of the negotiation process.
Based on the comments of the American negotiators in Anchorage, as well as various "leaks," these are Russian proposals to withdraw Ukrainian troops from Donetsk and Luhansk regions, in exchange for which Russia promises to cease fire in Ukraine and begin peace talks. Ukraine is categorically unhappy with such insidious pseudo-compromises, as it has stated both publicly and in contacts with U.S. representatives.
Therefore, the scenario proposed by the Kremlin will not lead to real peace negotiations. It should also be borne in mind that Russia and Ukraine still have fundamental disagreements on key issues of peaceful settlement, from the legal status of the occupied Ukrainian territories to security guarantees for Ukraine.
Given the positive experience of the Gaza peace agreement so far, it is expected that the US may propose its own peace plan to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.
They already tried to do this in April. Back then, it was Keith Kellogg's peace plan, and it looked more like a probe for a possible compromise. The attempt, however, failed. The plan was rejected by Russia. Ukraine and its European partners criticized certain points of the plan, primarily the categorical disagreement with the proposal to officially recognize the Russian status of Crimea.
But if President Trump's peace plan emerges, the attitude toward it will be completely different. It would be inconvenient for both the Kremlin and Ukraine to speak out directly against this plan. For Russia, this is because Putin wants to preserve the prospect of negotiations with Trump. And we cannot spoil relations with our strategic partner, on whom we largely depend for arms purchases and satellite information, as well as in the negotiation process .
However, both our side and the Russian side may have comments on certain points of this plan. We also need to understand that the United States may put pressure on us to adopt the basic principles of this plan. And this pressure will be not only on Russia, but also on Ukraine .
In our negotiations with our American partners, we should pay attention to the positive experience of the Gaza peace agreement, especially the priority of the ceasefire. As we know, the Kremlin does not want to agree to a ceasefire as a matter of priority, but we need to convince Trump that the same principle that worked well in the Gaza negotiations should be applied to a peaceful settlement of the Russian-Ukrainian war.
During the current preparatory phase of the resumption of peace talks, it is also advisable for the Ukrainian side to neutralize potential risks that may appear in the US peace proposals.
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