Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters that the United States has set a June timeline for Ukraine and Russia to reach an agreement aimed at ending the nearly four-year war, warning that the Trump administration would likely apply pressure if the deadline is missed. Zelenskyy said the U.S. proposal calls for both sides to act “by June” and that the plan includes a clear schedule of steps.
Zelenskyy said the U.S. proposal includes a framework for additional diplomacy and monitoring of a potential ceasefire, and he described the next stage of trilateral talks as likely occurring next week in the countries involved for the first time, with Miami among the possibilities. He said he and Ukraine “confirmed [their] participation,” and he said the U.S. reaffirmed it would play a role in how any ceasefire would be technically monitored.
The announcement comes amid renewed pressure on Ukraine’s energy sector from Russian strikes, which Zelenskyy said continued on Saturday as Russian forces launched more than 400 drones and about 40 missiles overnight. Ukrenergo, the state energy transmission operator, said the attack was the second mass strike on energy infrastructure since the start of the year and described impacts that extended across eight facilities in eight regions.
Ukrenergo said the strikes targeted the energy grid, generation facilities and distribution networks, and that missile hits on key high-voltage substations that supported nuclear power units forced nuclear plants in territories under control to reduce their load. The company said the resulting power deficit in the country increased “significantly,” leading to extended hourly power outages across all regions of Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said the latest deadline follows U.S.-brokered trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi that produced no breakthrough as the warring parties cling to mutually exclusive demands. He said Russia is pressing Ukraine to withdraw from the Donbas, a condition Kyiv said it will never accept, and he said Ukraine again confirmed its positions on the Donbas issue.
Zelenskyy also addressed topics that remained unresolved from the talks, including discussion of how a ceasefire would be monitored and the question of the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. He said no common ground was reached on managing Zaporizhzhia and expressed skepticism about the U.S. proposal to turn the Donbas into a free economic zone as a compromise.
In describing the negotiating logic, Zelenskyy said he did not know whether the free economic zone idea could be implemented because “when we talked about a free economic zone, we had different views on it.” He said the most difficult issues would be reserved for a trilateral meeting between leaders.
Zelenskyy said the U.S. again proposed a ceasefire that would ban strikes on energy infrastructure, and he said Ukraine is ready to observe such a pause if Russia commits. He added that when Moscow previously agreed to a one-week pause suggested by the U.S., the pause was violated after just four days.