Zelensky to speak with EU allies ahead of Trump meeting

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will hold talks with EU allies ahead of his meeting in Florida with US President Donald Trump, as Russia launched a fresh drone and missile attack on Kyiv and other regions of Ukraine.

"We are currently on a flight to Florida, the United States. On the way, we will make a stop in Canada. I will have a meeting with Canada's Prime Minister, (Mark) Carney. Together, we plan to speak online with European leaders," Mr Zelensky told journalists on a messenger app.

Earlier, he said that Russia attacked Ukraine with ⁠nearly 500 drones and 40 missiles overnight, targeting energy and civilian ‍infrastructure.

"If Russia turns even the Christmas and New Year period into a time of ⁠destroyed homes and burned apartments, ⁠of ruined power plants, then this sick ⁠activity ‍can ⁠only be responded to with truly ‍strong steps," he wrote on X, calling for the US and Europe to ‍pressure Russia harder.

He said Russia does "not want to end the war and seek to use every opportunity to cause Ukraine even greater suffering and increase their pressure on others around the world."

At least one person was killed during the attacks on Kyiv and dozens more wounded with hundreds of thousands of people left without heat and electricity in freezing temperatures.

Kyiv mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said 2,600 residential buildings and hundreds of kindergartens, schools and social buildings had lost heat.

Before the meeting in Florida, Mr Zelensky will have a call with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen ⁠and other European leaders, a commission spokesperson said.

Mr Zelensky said his talks in Florida tomorrow would focus on the territory to be controlled by each side after a halt to the fighting that began in February 2022 with President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Russia's smaller neighbour, Europe's deadliest conflict since World War II.

The latest plan is a 20-point proposal that would freeze the war on its current front line but open the door for Ukraine to pull back troops from the east, where demilitarised buffer zones could be created, according to details revealed by Mr Zelensky this week.

Explosions sounded in ‍Kyiv overnight as Ukraine's air defence units went into action, and the military said on the Telegram messaging app that missiles were being deployed. The air force said Russian drones were targeting the capital and regions in the northeast and south.

Russia's strikes also prompted the temporary closure of Rzeszow and Lublin airports in southeastern Poland, to the west of Ukraine, after the Polish armed forces scrambled fighter jets, the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency posted on X.

On Thursday night, Russia struck Ukraine's energy infrastructure and stepped up attacks on the southern region of Odesa, the site of Ukraine's main seaports.

Amid the continued fierce fighting, territory remains the main diplomatic stumbling block. A 20-point draft in the US-driven campaign to clinch a peace plan is 90% complete, Mr Zelensky told journalists in Kyiv.

He said a security guarantee agreement between Ukraine and the US was almost ready - a key element after guarantees in earlier post-Soviet years proved meaningless.

"A lot can be decided before the New Year," Mr Zelensky told Politico.

Mr Trump said the United States was the driving force behind the process.

"He doesn't have anything until I approve it," Mr Trump told Politico ‍in an interview published yesterday.

"So we'll see what he's got."

Mr Zelensky told Axios the US had offered a 15-year deal on security guarantees, subject to renewal, but Kyiv wanted a longer agreement with legally binding provisions to guard against further Russian aggression.

Mr Trump ⁠said he believed tomorrow's meeting would go well.

He also said he expected to speak with Mr Putin "soon, as much as I want."

In addition to territory, a critical point is control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, ⁠Europe's ‍largest, seized by Russia in ⁠the opening weeks of the war.

Moscow demands that Ukraine withdraw from the areas of the eastern region of Donetsk that Russian troops have failed to occupy in their drive to secure all of the Donbas, which also includes the ‍Luhansk region.

Kyiv wants the fighting halted at the current lines.

Under a US compromise, a free economic zone would be set up if Ukraine ⁠leaves parts of the Donetsk region, though details have yet to be worked out.

Axios quoted Mr Zelensky as saying that if he is not able to push the US to back Ukraine's "strong" position on the land issue, he was willing to put the 20-point plan to a referendum - as long as Russia agrees to a 60-day ceasefire to allow Ukraine to prepare for and hold the vote.

He said he wanted more pressure applied to Russia.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Kyiv's version of the 20-point plan differed ‍from what Russia had been discussing with the US, according to Interfax-Russia news agency.

But he expressed optimism that matters had reached a "turning point" in the search for a settlement.

Mr Putin's foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, spoke with members of the Trump administration after Moscow received ⁠US proposals about a possible peace deal, the Kremlin said yesterday.

It did not disclose how Moscow had viewed the documents.