Ukraine, EU to prepare ceasefire plan within 7-10 days – Zelensky

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said this in an interview with Axios, Ukrinform reports.

Following the October 17 meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Zelensky at the White House, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer proposed putting forward a peace initiative modeled after the American leader's plan for Gaza.

Zelensky discussed the idea with the British prime minister and other European leaders last week. He told them that the situations in Gaza and Ukraine are different, but added that he is ready to work on the proposal. The plan should be concise and free of unnecessary details, he said.

"Some quick points. Like a plan for a ceasefire. We decided we will work on it in the next week or ten days," Zelensky said.

He also expressed skepticism about Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin's willingness to accept any peace proposal.

Zelensky described his meeting with Trump at the White House as "constructive," while acknowledging that it was not easy.

"My talks with President Trump were about pressure on Russia. I think he wanted to pressure them, but he didn't want to make an escalation or close the window ... for diplomacy," he said.

According to Zelensky, during the meeting the two "understood each other."

"President Trump said we have to freeze the current situation and speak," Zelensky said.

He also stressed that the conversation between U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov “was not positive.”

"As far as I know, the conversation between Rubio and Lavrov was not positive. They did the same after Alaska. This is the third or fourth time when Putin and his people reject what Trump says," Zelensky said.

Zelensky pushed back on recent claims that Russia is making advances on the front lines. He said he had made clear to Trump they were false, and claimed U.S. intelligence also showed "nobody is winning now on the battlefield."

Zelensky claimed Ukrainian intelligence found Putin had privately boasted to allies that Russia would occupy the entire Donbas region by October 15, a deadline that came and went.

"Russia can't do it. He doesn't have enough people. His strong battalions have been destroyed. Today on the battlefield, we stay mostly where we stood during this last 2-3 months," Zelensky added.

Zelensky said his generals told him Russia had lost 346,000 soldiers killed and wounded in 2025. That's almost identical to the number it mobilized during that time, he said.