Donald Trump has said he is willing to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky “soon” – providing one thing happens first. The US president has long made peace in the conflict one of his primary goals and a renewed push to end the war has gathered momentum in recent days.

Last week, following talks between Washington and Moscow, the White House presented a 28-point plan to Ukraine calling on it to cede its entire eastern Donbas region to Russia amongst other demands widely believed to favour Russia. Mr Zelensky said late on Monday that “the list of necessary steps to end the war can become workable”. He said that he planned to discuss “sensitive” outstanding issues with Mr Trump.

Rustem Umerov, a senior adviser to Mr Zelensky, posted on X on Tuesday that Mr Zelensky hoped to finalise a deal with Mr Trump “at the earliest suitable date in November”.

Trump took to Truth Social on Tuesday evening to reiterate the need to end the killing, claiming that the plan had been “fine-tuned with additional input from both sides, and there are only a few remaining points of disagreement.”

He said: “In the hopes of finalizing this Peace Plan, I have directed my Special Envoy Steve Witkoff to meet with President Putin in Moscow and, at the same time, Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll will be meeting with the Ukrainians.”

He added: “I look forward to hopefully meeting with President Zelenskyy and President Putin soon, but ONLY when the deal to end this War is FINAL or, in its final stages.”

In addition to the relinquishing of Ukrainian territory, the peace plan announced last week also included an obligation on Kyiv to restrict its military to a 600,000-person limit and permanently ban Ukraine from joining NATO.

It also would rule out NATO troops in Ukraine and would not commit the US or European nations to Ukraine’s defence if Russia attacks again.

For its part, Russia would commit to no more attacks on Ukraine, facing sanctions if it violates that.

Ukraine and its European allies have said the plan rewards Russian aggression.

The developments come after Russia launched a wave of overnight attacks on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, with at least seven people killed in strikes that hit city buildings and energy infrastructure.

Russia fired 22 missiles of various types and more than 460 drones at Ukraine overnight, Mr Zelensky wrote on Telegram.

The strikes knocked out water, electricity and heat in parts of Kyiv. Images showed a large fire spreading in a nine-story residential building in Kyiv’s eastern Dniprovskyi district.

Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said 20 people were wounded in Kyiv. The Russian Defence Ministry said that it targeted military-industrial facilities and energy assets. The strikes were a response to Ukrainian attacks on civilian objects in Russia, the ministry said.

Liubov Petrivna, a 90-year-old resident of a damaged building in the Dniprovskyi district, told the AP that “absolutely everything” in her apartment was shattered by the strike and “glass rained down” on her.

“No one will ever do anything about it,” she said. Russian President Vladimir Putin “won’t stop until he finishes us off.”