Zelenskyy says US has given Ukraine, Russia June deadline to end war
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine has accepted Washington’s proposal to host the next round of talks in the US next week, likely to be held in Miami.
The United States has given Ukraine and Russia until June to reach an agreement to end the nearly four-year war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. He added that the Trump administration will likely build pressure on both sides if they fail to meet the deadline.
“The Americans are proposing that the parties end the war by the beginning of this summer and will probably put pressure on the parties precisely according to this schedule…And they say that they want to do everything by June. And they will do everything to end the war. And they want a clear schedule of all events,” news agency AP quoted Zelenskyy as saying.
Next round of talks in Miami
Zelenskyy said Ukraine has accepted Washington’s proposal to host the next round of talks in the US next week, likely to be held in Miami. This would mark the first trilateral discussion in the US.
The second round of US-brokered trilateral talks concluded in Abu Dhabi, with both sides agreeing on a major prisoner exchange. However, the discussions produced no breakthrough, leaving key political and security issues unresolved.
Deadlock over Donbas — an industrial heartland
Russia is pressing Kyiv to withdraw from the eastern Ukrainian territory of Donbas, where fighting remains intense — a condition Kyiv says it will never accept. The Donbas refers collectively to Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts — once considered the country’s industrial heartland.
The region accounts for over 50 per cent of the country’s coal reserves, 20 per cent of its gas fields, hosts fertile farmland, water resources and vast critical mineral deposits, essential to renewable energy technologies, according to the Centre for International Relations and Sustainable Development (CIRSD), a think-tank that partners with the World Economic Forum (WEF).
Military paramedics evacuate a wounded civilian after the Russian shelling in the town of Druzhkivka, Donetsk region. (Ukrainian Police Press Service via AP)
According to Moscow’s “Novorossiya” narrative, large swathes of southeastern Ukraine are considered historically Russian lands, thereby justifying its occupation.
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Russia currently controls nearly all of Luhansk and around 70% of the Donetsk oblast, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a US-based think tank.
In October 2025, two months after hosting Russian President Vladimir Putin for a summit in Alaska, US President Donald Trump said that Ukraine’s Donbas region should be “cut up,” leaving much of it under Moscow’s control, as a way to end the war.
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Military paramedics evacuate a wounded civilian after the Russian shelling in the town of Druzhkivka, Donetsk region. (Ukrainian Police Press Service via AP)