A senior Kremlin envoy praised President Donald Trump’s efforts to broker peace in Ukraine on Sunday, following Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to the White House for talks aimed at ending Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Kirill Dmitriev, who also serves as chief executive of the Russian Direct Investment Fund and has been closely involved in contacts with U.S. officials, praised Trump’s diplomacy in a post on X.
“The whole world appreciates President Trump and his team’s peace efforts,” Dmitriev wrote.
In the same post, Dmitriev criticized what he described as “UK/EU warmongers” for continuing to support Ukraine, echoing a long-standing Kremlin narrative that portrays U.S.-led diplomatic initiatives as being undermined by NATO and European allies.
Trump and Zelenskyy met Sunday at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. Ahead of the meeting, Trump spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov. Ushakov said the call was arranged at Trump’s initiative and lasted more than two hours, according to Russia’s state-run TASS news agency.
After the meeting with Zelenskyy, Trump told reporters that negotiations were nearing a potential breakthrough.
“We’re getting a lot closer — maybe very close,” Trump said, adding that discussions with Putin had been “excellent” and covered most of the issues needed to end the war, which Russia launched in February 2022.
Trump said approximately “95%” of the elements required for a deal had been addressed and noted that he later spoke with European leaders, describing those conversations as constructive.
Despite the optimism, key points remain unresolved. Both Trump and Zelenskyy acknowledged that the issue of territorial concessions — particularly involving Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region — has yet to be settled.
Russia has demanded that Ukrainian forces withdraw from the entirety of the Donbas, which includes the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as a condition for a peace agreement. Zelenskyy has instead proposed the establishment of a demilitarized zone in the area, an idea Moscow has so far rejected.
Negotiations are expected to continue as diplomatic efforts intensify in the coming days.
