Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky travels to Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate on Sunday, December 28, carrying with him the weight of a thousand days of war and the burden of an American-brokered peace plan that may demand the impossible. The meeting represents a significant escalation in diplomatic engagement—moving negotiations from envoy-level discussions between figures like Jared Kushner and Ukraine's Defense Minister Rustem Umerov to a direct confrontation between principals over terms that remain fundamentally incompatible with the strategic realities on the ground.
This is not a celebration of imminent peace. It is a high-stakes test of whether diplomatic frameworks, no matter how carefully constructed, can bridge gaps forged by military power and hardened by blood. Zelensky's urgency—his insistence that "a lot can be decided before the New Year"—speaks to pressure from Washington and exhaustion at home. Yet the fundamental question remains unanswered: has the battlefield shifted enough to make the concessions embedded in this plan acceptable to either Kyiv or Moscow?
The evolution of the framework
The current 20-point peace proposal represents a refinement from an earlier 28-point draft that Ukrainian officials privately criticized as tilted toward Russian interests. Washington has added provisions explicitly addressing Kyiv's concerns, including more robust language on security guarantees and pathways toward Western integration. These adjustments reflect Trump's desire to present a balanced framework that both parties might accept, positioning himself as the dealmaker who ended Europe's bloodiest conflict since 1945.
Yet the core elements remain unchanged, and they cut to the heart of what makes this war intractable. Russia still demands Ukrainian neutrality—a permanent renunciation of NATO membership—and recognition of territorial realities in the Donbas and other occupied regions. Ukraine still insists on sovereignty over all internationally recognized territory and credible security architecture that prevents future Russian aggression. Previous discussions have revealed Moscow's strategic calculus, where territorial concessions are non-negotiable prerequisites, not bargaining chips.
The additions favoring Ukraine—explicit U.S. and potential NATO security guarantees, economic reconstruction commitments—are designed to make territorial compromise palatable. From a realist perspective, this raises immediate questions of credibility. Would a Republican-controlled Senate ratify binding security commitments? Would European allies follow through when their own defense spending remains inadequate? Or are these guarantees diplomatic packaging, meant to provide political cover for what amounts to ratification of conquest?
Members are reading: Analysis of why the territorial compromise at the plan's core creates an unsolvable paradox between Ukrainian security needs and Russian war aims.
Motivations and the transactional presidency
Trump approaches this summit with clear domestic political incentives. A Ukraine peace deal would represent a foreign policy victory of historic proportions, validating his campaign promise to end the war "in 24 hours" and positioning him as the statesman who succeeded where the Biden administration failed. The substance of the deal matters less, from this perspective, than its existence. A framework agreement, even one with implementation mechanisms stretched over years and vulnerable to collapse, serves Trump's narrative needs.
Zelensky faces a more brutal calculation. He must demonstrate to a war-weary Ukrainian public that continued sacrifice serves a viable path to acceptable peace, while simultaneously avoiding any perception of capitulation that would fracture domestic support and embolden hardliners in Moscow. His presence at Mar-a-Lago signals openness to American mediation, but his ultimate negotiating constraint is not what Trump offers—it is what the Ukrainian public will accept and what Ukrainian forces can defend.
The realist verdict
The Mar-a-Lago summit will produce communiqués, perhaps even a joint statement of principles. It may establish working groups, timelines, and verification mechanisms. What it cannot produce is a durable peace, because the underlying power dynamics remain unchanged. Russia has not been defeated decisively enough to abandon maximalist territorial claims. Ukraine has not been weakened sufficiently to accept permanent loss of sovereignty over occupied lands without credible security guarantees that NATO members are unwilling to provide.
Peace in the realist tradition is not negotiated through frameworks—it is imposed by exhaustion, military defeat, or a stable balance of deterrence. The Trump-Zelensky meeting will reveal not whether peace is achievable, but whether either leader is prepared to pay the domestic political price for the kind of compromise the current military stalemate would demand. Until the balance of power shifts decisively, diplomacy remains theater, and the war continues.
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