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Published : 22 Jan 2026, 07:29 PM
US President Donald Trump said peace efforts on Ukraine were "getting close" ahead of a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Davos on Thursday, as US envoy Steve Witkoff said negotiations were down to one last issue.
US and Ukrainian officials have spent weeks in frenetic shuttle diplomacy as Kyiv faces pressure from Trump to secure peace in the nearly four-year-old war, despite few signs Moscow wants to stop fighting.
"I think they're getting close. A lot of people are being killed. We've got to get it done," Trump said as Zelenskiy arrived at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort. The Ukrainian presidency said in a statement shortly after 1pm local time in Davos (1200 GMT) that the meeting had begun.
Zelensky had said earlier this week he would only travel to Davos if he could sign agreements with Trump on US security guarantees and post-war reconstruction funding for Ukraine.
On Wednesday, Trump announced he would meet Zelensky on the sidelines of the gathering, adding that a deal was "reasonably close".
The two leaders have met around half a dozen times face-to-face since Trump returned to the White House last year and upended US policy on Ukraine by embracing diplomacy with Russia.
Zelensky, saddled with an energy crisis at home from Russian air strikes that have left swathes of the capital and other regions without power and heating, was due to deliver a speech after his meeting with Trump, his spokesperson said.
"If both sides want to solve this, we're going to get it solved," Witkoff told an audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos. "I think we've made a lot of progress."
TALKS WITH PUTIN IN MOSCOW
Witkoff has held talks in recent days with Ukrainian officials in Davos, following weekend discussions in Florida. He was due in Moscow with fellow US envoy Jared Kushner - Trump's son-in-law - later on Thursday for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the possible plan to end Europe's deadliest war since World War Two.
Russia has been cool on the US-led peace push, demanding that Kyiv give up part of its eastern Donetsk region which Moscow has been unable to conquer despite grinding forward on the battlefield.
Putin said late on Wednesday that they would discuss a settlement on Ukraine and the possibility of using frozen Russian assets for reconstruction of Moscow-occupied land, as well as Trump's proposal for a Board of Peace, tasked with promoting peace around the world.
Critics of the proposal have said it would rival or undermine the United Nations.
The Kremlin said Putin's meeting with Witkoff and Kushner will take place after 7 to 8pm Moscow time (1600 to 1700 GMT). It declined to comment on Witkoff's stated optimism that a deal was close but said it appreciated his diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
Ukraine's international bonds rallied more than 2 cents on Thursday as the bout of high-level diplomatic meetings lifted hopes in financial markets that progress could be made towards ending the war.
RUSSIA KEEPS UP ATTACK ON UKRAINE
Russian airstrikes hit several parts of Ukraine on Thursday. In the southern region of Odesa, a 17-year-old man was killed when a drone struck an apartment building, the regional governor said.
Eleven people were also wounded in the central city of Kryvyi Rih when a ballistic missile slammed into a residential building, officials said.
In the capital Kyiv, nearly 3,000 high-rises across the city remained without heating on Thursday after Russia's latest attack earlier this week.
