Stop me if you’ve heard this one. President Trump is going to meet with President Zelensky at Mar-a-Lago to discuss ending the war in Ukraine on Sunday.

In the lead up to this meeting, Trump is talking with different media outlets about his expectations regarding the current situation.

President Trump told The Post that he’s optimistic about finally securing a peace deal when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visits his Mar-a-Lago club on Sunday.

“Well, I think we have a good shot at it,” Trump told The Post in a Friday afternoon phone call.

“I think they want to do it now, and I think that Russia wants to do it. But every time one wants to do it, the other doesn’t,” Trump said.

“I settled eight wars, and this is the most difficult of them all. But I think we’ll get it done.”

However, the devil, as always, is in the details.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to meet with Trump in Florida on Sunday and told reporters he’s bringing with him a new 20-point plan for peace. The framework includes a proposed demilitarized zone and the meeting is expected to focus on U.S. security guarantees.

But in an interview, Trump appeared lukewarm to Zelenskyy’s latest overture and in no rush to endorse the Ukrainian president’s proposal.

“He doesn’t have anything until I approve it,” Trump said. “So we’ll see what he’s got.”

Still, Trump believed he could have a productive meeting this weekend.

“I think it’s going to go good with him. I think it’s going to go good with [Vladimir] Putin,” Trump said, adding that he expects to speak with the Russian leader “soon, as much as I want.”

Trump’s comments came the day after Zelenskyy spoke with special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law. Zelenskyy called that a “good conversation.”

Now, it does sound like Zelensky, at least, is compromising as best as he can. In an interview with Axios, Zelensky says that he’s willing to hold a referendum on a peace deal – but he needs a guaranteed ceasefire in order to hold it.

While Zelensky emphasized that great progress has been made, Trump’s plan still demands painful territorial concessions from Ukraine in the east. Zelensky is still hoping to improve those terms, and said he will need to seek the approval of the Ukrainian people if they can’t get to a “strong” position on territory.

The U.S. side sees it as a major step forward that Zelensky is willing to hold a referendum and is no longer ruling out territorial concessions.

But as Zelensky emphasized during the phone interview with Axios, holding such a plebiscite would have major political, logistical and security complications.

That’s why he thinks a 60-day ceasefire to arrange and hold the vote “is the minimum.” A senior U.S. official told Axios the Russians understand the need for a ceasefire if Zelensky calls a referendum, but want a shorter timetable.

Zelensky also said it’s not yet clear to him whether Russia is prepared to agree to Trump’s plan in the first place. “I have some intelligence… but I’m at the moment when I want to believe only to the words of leaders,” he said.

This is not to say that all of these comments are not positive steps toward peace. There’s just a giant roadblock in the middle of that path to peace, named Vladimir Putin. Once again, President Trump is counting on Putin to accept an end to a war, that he started, on someone else’s terms. Zelensky is at the point where he is willing to go to the Ukrainian people with a peace plan that would create a demilitarized zone in the Donbas region. So, exactly what is Putin willing to compromise and accept? And is President Trump ready to acknowledge that Putin is the problem, as the New York Post editorial board pointed out, and make his life very difficult if he elects to continue the war?

Fact is, Vlad needs to feel considerable pain for rejecting serious steps to end the war; to get him to want peace (on terms he sees as less than optimal), the price of more warfare must be made too high.

Sanctions against Rosneft and Lukoil, its energy giants, have forced Russia to discount its oil exports.

The country’s economy is veering toward outright recession as Russia directs more of its productive capacity to building weapons, and feeds more of its youth into the jaws of death.

Yes, Ukraine withdrew its forces Tuesday from its stronghold in the eastern town of Siversk, but it also delivered a humiliating Christmas Day blow to Putin by recapturing Kupyansk, a key rail hub.

If the Russian strongman thinks a victory on the ground is imminent, he’s more delusional than anyone knew.

The deadlock on the front is promising to grind on and on.

Zelensky’s peace proposal, meanwhile, reasonably calls for firm security guarantees to prevent Russia from invading again, a robust standing army partially funded by Western partners, EU membership and military support from Europe.

In exchange, Kyiv would pull troops out of the areas of the Donbas that it still controls and demilitarize the region. Russia would have to similarly drop back from a comparably sized amount of territory on its side.

There’s no reason in theory why this proposal couldn’t bring an end to the fighting.

Except, again, Putin seems happy to continue the war while only pretending to entertain negotiations he has no aim of concluding.In exchange, Kyiv would pull troops out of the areas of the Donbas that it still controls and demilitarize the region. Russia would have to similarly drop back from a comparably sized amount of territory on its side.

There’s no reason in theory why this proposal couldn’t bring an end to the fighting.

Except, again, Putin seems happy to continue the war while only pretending to entertain negotiations he has no aim of concluding.

Which is precisely the reason the West must raise the costs and make it unbearable to continue this pointless conflict.

At this point, we have heard repeatedly from President Trump that Putin is willing to end the war, but when the rubber hits the road, Putin wants the war to end with Ukraine being absorbed back into Russia as a satellite Soviet state, not unlike Belarus. Up to this point, Europe and the United States have not let that happen, but Putin is playing the long game. He will obstruct peace for precisely as long as Trump is working toward a compromise that allows Ukraine to still exist as an independent country.

Now, despite all this talk, and the testy relationship between Trump and Zelensky in the past, the administration is aware that Russia will have to give in order to reach an end to the war.

.@SecRubio: "A negotiated settlement requires two things: both sides to get something out of it and both sides to give something. And we're trying to figure out what can Russia give and what do they expect to get, what can Ukraine give and what can Ukraine expect to get." pic.twitter.com/IkCqrVq3bI

— Department of State (@StateDept) December 19, 2025

This is one of those moments where Trump needs to act like a president, and put aside past grudges. We know he has issues with Zelensky, but he has to ignore those if he wants to get a peace deal. We also know that he has buttered up Putin repeatedly, and that will have to stop in order to force Putin to the table. Trump is going to have to make walking away from a peace deal painful for Russia, especially if Ukraine is sitting at the table with a peace deal that they are willing to accept. The president keeps talking about how he wants this war ended and settled. It remains to be seen if he’s willing to put the screws to Putin in order to make that happen.

Featured image: President Donald Trump on September 23, 2025, official White House Photo by Daniel Torok, cropped, public domain