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Zelensky to meet Trump as efforts to end Russia-Ukraine war remain elusive #Zelensky #meet #Trump #efforts #RussiaUkraine #war #remain #elusive

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Volodoymyr Zelenskyy speaking at a podium.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks during a press conference during the EU summit in Brussels, Thursday, December 18, 2025. (Geert Vanden Wijngaert/AP)


WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Donald Trump will host his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on Sunday to try to hammer out a peace deal that would end a nearly four-year war that began with Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The two men will meet at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, Florida, where the US president vacations and has a schedule mostly filled with daily rounds of golf. Zelenskyy said the two planned to discuss security and economic deals and that he would raise “territorial issues” as Moscow and kyiv remain fiercely at odds over the fate of eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region.

In the days leading up to the meeting, Russia intensified its attacks on the Ukrainian capital, using missiles and drones to attack kyiv and try to increase pressure on Zelensky.

“Ukraine is ready to do whatever it takes to end this war,” Zelensky posted on X on Saturday. “We must be strong at the negotiating table.”

In response to the attacks, he wrote: “We want peace and Russia is demonstrating its desire to continue the war. If the whole world – Europe and America – is on our side, together we will stop” Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Saturday, Zelenskyy said the key to peace was “pressure on Russia and sufficient and strong support for Ukraine.” To that end, Carney announced an additional $1.8 billion in economic aid from his government to help Ukraine rebuild.

Denouncing the “barbarity” of the latest Russian attacks on kyiv, Carney credited Zelensky and Trump with creating the conditions for a “just and lasting peace” at a crucial moment.

Trump and Zelensky, sitting opposite each other, also highlighted the apparent progress made by Trump’s top negotiators in recent weeks, as the sides exchanged draft peace plans and continued to hammer out a proposal to end the fighting. Zelenskyy told reporters Friday that the 20-point draft proposal discussed by negotiators was “about 90 percent ready” — echoing a figure and optimism expressed by U.S. officials when Trump’s chief negotiators met with Zelenskyy in Berlin earlier this month.

During recent negotiations, the United States agreed to offer Ukraine certain security guarantees similar to those offered to other NATO members. The proposal comes as Zelensky says he is ready to abandon his country’s candidacy for the security alliance if Ukraine benefits from NATO-like protection, intended to protect it against future Russian attacks.

“Intensive” weeks to come

Zelensky also spoke on Christmas Day with US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. The Ukrainian leader said in an article on

The US president has worked to end the war in Ukraine for much of his first year in office, venting anger at both Zelensky and Putin while publicly acknowledging the difficulty of ending the conflict. The days when, as a candidate in 2024, he boasted of being able to resolve fights in a day are long gone.

After welcoming Zelensky to the White House in October, Trump demanded that Russia and Ukraine stop fighting and “stop at the battle line,” implying that Moscow should be able to hold on to the territory it captured from Ukraine.

Before Sunday’s meeting, Zelensky said key unresolved issues between Ukraine and the United States include issues related to territory, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and financing Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction. He added that there also remained outstanding technical issues related to security guarantees and monitoring mechanisms.

Ukraine has conveyed its position to the United States, Zelenskyy said, adding that Trump administration officials would convey it to Russia.

Zelensky also said last week that he would be ready to withdraw his troops from Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland as part of a plan to end the war, if Russia also withdrew and the area became a demilitarized zone monitored by international forces.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday that the Kremlin had already been in contact with the United States.

“It was agreed to continue the dialogue,” he said.

Putin wants Russian achievements to be preserved, and more

Putin has publicly stated that he wants all areas of four key regions that have been captured by his forces, as well as the Crimean peninsula, illegally annexed in 2014, to be recognized as Russian territory. He also insisted that Ukraine withdraw from some areas of eastern Ukraine that Moscow’s forces have not captured. Kyiv has publicly rejected all these demands.

The Kremlin also wants Ukraine to abandon its NATO candidacy. He warned that he would not accept the deployment of troops from the military alliance and that he would consider them a “legitimate target”.

Putin also said Ukraine must limit the size of its army and grant official status to the Russian language, demands he made from the start of the conflict.

Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, told the Kommersant business daily this month that Russian police and national guards would remain in parts of Donetsk – one of the two main areas, along with Luhansk, that make up the Donbass region – even if it became a demilitarized zone under a possible peace plan.

Ushakov warned that trying to reach a compromise could take a long time. He said U.S. proposals that took Russian demands into account had been “worsened” by changes proposed by Ukraine and its European allies.

Trump has been somewhat receptive to Putin’s demands, arguing that the Russian president can be persuaded to end the war if kyiv agrees to cede Ukrainian lands in the Donbas region and if Western powers offer economic incentives to bring Russia back into the global economy.

Kim reported from Washington and Morton from London. Associated Press writers Illia Novikov in Kyiv and Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.



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MARKETS EUROPE/DAX is up slightly at target level #MARKETS #EUROPEDAX #slightly #target #level

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DJ MARKETS EUROPA/DAX is up slightly from the target level

DOW JONES–European stock markets are higher Tuesday afternoon. There is little news and most investors are no longer active as the start of the year approaches. We cannot exclude the so-called “window dressing” of individual stocks, i.e. the targeted maintenance of prices in the portfolios of institutional investors. On some exchanges, trading is shortened only on Tuesdays. Trading in Germany and Austria ends at 2 p.m. THIS. While today is the last trading day of the year on some exchanges, shortened listings will take place on Wednesday in Lisbon, London, Madrid and Paris.

The DAX gained 0.5 percent to 24,476 points; the index is up 22 percent since the start of the year. The DAX can look back on an excellent year overall. “A closer look, however, shows that only the first half of the year was excellent for the DAX. The second half of the year was more of a sideways trend,” explains QC Partners. The MDAX is once again lagging and is up 19 percent year to date. The TecDAX has a meager yield of 5 percent. This continues the pattern of German blue-chip companies performing better in their international operations than German mid-sized companies. Whether this will change with Germany’s billion-dollar investment program remains to be seen.

The Euro-Stoxx-50 rose by 0.6 percent to 5,789 points. The majority of the year’s best-performing countries come from the South, where European economic growth was based last year. The Spanish stock market rose by 48 percent, while in Athens the index even rose by 50 percent.

On the foreign exchange market, the euro changes little, at $1.1769; During the year, the greenback lost a lot of value. This is unlikely to make it easier for European companies to sell more expensive products around the world due to the strength of the euro next year. Yields on the bond markets are up slightly. After the liquidation of the day before, precious metals are recovering. The price of gold rose 1.2 percent to $4,385, silver rose 3.8 percent to $74.90. Not surprisingly, European mining stocks were one of the day’s winners, rising 1.6 percent. Shares of silver producer Fresnillo rose 5.5 percent.

The geopolitical situation remains tense. US President Donald Trump has threatened Iran with a military strike if the country resumes its nuclear program. Meanwhile, Hamas was threatened with serious consequences if the terrorist organization did not lay down its arms. Finally, China is organizing one of the largest military exercises in recent years off the coast of Taiwan. This is likely a reaction to the recent announcement of US arms deliveries to the island nation.

Additionally, the United States recently carried out an attack on a port area in Venezuela where US President Trump said drugs were being loaded onto boats and smuggled across international waters, saying a “big explosion” had occurred. Oil prices are barely reacting to this news. Brent is up 0.4 percent.

Defense stocks are recovering after the selling pressures of the day before. There is still no sign of progress in peace or ceasefire negotiations in Ukraine. Rheinmetall gained 2.1 percent, Renk 2.5 percent and Hensoldt 0.9 percent.

Meanwhile, bank stocks continue to run. The sector can look forward to a good year in 2025 thanks to the rise in yields on the bond markets. Deutsche Bank gains 1.5 percent and Commerzbank 2.0 percent.

Chipmaker Infineon’s sales growth (+1.8%) is down, with only one sector seeing strong growth: semiconductors to power AI data centers. “We are seeing a strong increase in demand and many indicators suggest that this will continue in the coming years,” CEO Jochen Hanebeck told Handelsblatt. “We currently cannot deliver as much as customers order.”

=== 
INDEX           zuletzt    +/- %  absolut +/- % YTD 
Euro-Stoxx-50      5.788,57    +0,6%   36,86   +17,4% 
Stoxx-50         4.918,84    +0,5%   25,52   +13,6% 
DAX           24.476,16    +0,5%   125,04   +22,3% 
MDAX          30.548,50    +0,3%   95,97   +18,4% 
TecDAX          3.613,61    +0,4%   13,79   +5,0% 
SDAX          17.094,60    +0,5%   78,05   +22,6% 
CAC           8.141,91    +0,4%   29,89   +9,8% 
SMI           13.259,65    +0,1%   19,06   +14,2% 
ATX           5.304,29    +1,1%   56,33   +43,2% 
 
DEVISEN          zuletzt    +/- %    0:00 Mo, 18:00  % YTD 
EUR/USD          1,1769    +0,0%   1,1767   1,1756  +13,7% 
EUR/JPY          183,56    -0,1%   183,67   183,59  +13,1% 
EUR/CHF          0,9286    -0,1%   0,9291   0,9287  -1,0% 
EUR/GBP          0,8715    -0,0%   0,8716   0,8712  +5,4% 
USD/JPY          155,94    -0,1%   156,03   156,12  -0,5% 
GBP/USD          1,3505    +0,0%   1,3502   1,3494  +7,9% 
USD/CNY          7,0292    -0,0%   7,0312   7,0324  -2,3% 
USD/CNH          6,9881    -0,2%   6,9987   7,0001  -4,5% 
AUS/USD          0,6701    +0,1%   0,6693   0,6690  +8,4% 
Bitcoin/USD       87.770,40    +0,6% 87.232,35 87.544,55  -7,3% 
 
ROHÖL           zuletzt VT-Settlem.   +/- %  +/- USD  % YTD 
WTI/Nymex          58,29    58,08   +0,4%    0,21  -20,9% 
Brent/ICE          62,12    61,94   +0,3%    0,18  -19,4% 
 
METALLE          zuletzt    Vortag   +/- %  +/- USD  % YTD 
Gold           4.384,52   4.330,40   +1,2%   54,12  +72,8% 
Silber           74,90    72,18   +3,8%    2,73 +173,6% 
Platin          1.854,76   1.791,70   +3,5%   63,06 +137,7% 
Kupfer            5,49     5,49     0%    0,00  +33,6% 
YTD bezogen auf Schlussstand des Vortags 
(Angaben ohne Gewähr) 
=== 

Contact the author: maerkte.de@dowjones.com

DJG/thl/ros

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 30, 2025 7:01 a.m. ET (12:01 p.m. GMT)

Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.



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Nuggets’ Nikola Jokic prepares for MRI after injuring knee in Miami #Nuggets #Nikola #Jokic #prepares #MRI #injuring #knee #Miami

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MIAMI — Nuggets star Nikola Jokic limped off the court at halftime of Denver’s 147-123 loss to the Miami Heat on Monday night after injuring his left knee about three seconds before intermission.

He was not on the field in the second half and will have an MRI on Tuesday.

“Immediately he knew something was wrong,” Nuggets coach David Adelman said after the game. “Hey, that’s part of the NBA. Anyone who gets hurt in this game, it’s a little heartbreaking, especially someone as special as him. We’ll know more tomorrow. We’ll move forward as a team. Obviously, right now, I’m more concerned about him as a person and the disappointment of going through something like this.”

Jokic was alone under the basket and appeared to step forward to help Denver’s Spencer Jones defend a drive by Miami’s Jaime Jaquez Jr. as time was about to expire in the second quarter. While reversing, Jones stepped on Jokic’s left foot and it appeared the center’s knee bent a bit.

Jokic collapsed on the court, grabbing his knee. He was helped to his feet, then made his way to the locker room under his own power but with a pronounced limp. He was evaluated by doctors Monday night before leaving the arena, and the Nuggets were scheduled to fly to Toronto on Tuesday for a game against the Raptors on Wednesday.

“It’s just part of this process,” Adelman said. “You don’t get definitive answers right after these things happen. I know he’s an extremely special player that people want updates on immediately; that makes perfect sense to me. But we will follow the process properly, for him and for our team.”

The Nuggets have faced major injury issues this season and were playing Monday without three potential contenders: Christian Braun (left ankle sprain), Aaron Gordon (right hamstring sprain) and Cameron Johnson (right knee injury management).

Denver has managed to fight its way through these injuries – thanks in large part to Jokic.

“The things he’s doing this year,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said before Monday’s game, “are really remarkable.”

Jokic had 21 points, 8 assists and 5 rebounds in the first half on Monday. If he sits out for any length of time, it will be a major blow to Denver and, in some ways, the entire NBA, given that he is one of the game’s superstars. Even a month’s absence would mean about 16 games, which could have a serious impact on Denver’s standing in a loaded Western Conference.

“Tonight my mind is going to wander,” Adelman said. “And there will be questions about what we should do in the future if he is out for a while or a long period of time.”

Jokic is a three-time MVP and was certainly early in the MVP conversation this season, having started Monday averaging 29.9 points, 12.4 rebounds and 11.1 assists – on track to average a triple-double for the second straight campaign.

“He’s not only a big part of what we do, but almost everything we do,” Nuggets guard Jamal Murray said. “We just want to see him healthy, and everyone here is ready to step up.”

Jokic has also been remarkably durable. He has missed 36 games over the past five seasons; the Nuggets went 13-23 during those absences. He played in all 32 games for Denver this season.

“I hope for the best,” Adelman said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.



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Russia accuses Ukraine of attacking Putin’s residence with drones; Kyiv denies allegations #Russia #accuses #Ukraine #attacking #Putins #residence #drones #Kyiv #denies #allegations

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The conflict, which began with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Russia on Monday accused Ukraine of launching a large-scale drone attack on one of President Vladimir Putin’s residences in the Novgorod region, a claim kyiv dismissed as a “fabrication” intended to derail ongoing peace talks.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Ukraine deployed 91 long-range unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) overnight from Sunday to Monday. He claimed that all drones were intercepted and destroyed by Russian air defenses and that there were no casualties or damage. Lavrov called Ukraine’s actions “state terrorism” and warned that Russia would reconsider its negotiating position in the U.S.-led peace process.

Ukraine has strongly denied these allegations. President Volodymyr Zelensky called the claims “typical Russian lies” designed to justify further attacks on Ukraine and undermine peace efforts with the United States. “It is essential that the world does not remain silent now,” Zelensky said on X, calling for continued international support for the negotiations.

The accusation comes shortly after Zelensky met with US President Donald Trump in Florida to discuss a revised peace plan. Ukraine says it has accepted 90% of the US proposal, including post-war security guarantees, although territorial disputes remain unresolved.

Zelensky rejected the request

Speaking to Fox News, Zelensky said that while there is a “possibility of ending this war” by 2026, Ukraine still counts on support from the United States. He also expressed skepticism about Putin’s desire to seek peace.

The conflict, which began with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, has left much of the eastern Donbass region disputed. Russia controls around 75% of Donetsk and 99% of Luhansk, while Ukraine continues to resist Moscow’s advances.

As tensions rise, international attention is now focused on whether alleged attacks like the one on Putin’s residence further complicate the fragile peace process.



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