The summit, which Trump is hosting at his lavish Mar-a-Lago home, will be the first face-to-face meeting between the two since the US president turned down Zelenskyy's request for long-range Tomahawk missiles in October.
Zelenskyy expressed his expectation that the negotiations would be "very constructive" during a layover in Canada on Saturday. He also said that Russian President Vladimir Putin had demonstrated his influence with the most recent attack on the Ukrainian capital.
"Once more, Russia's response to our peace initiatives is this strike. He added, "And this clearly demonstrated that Putin doesn't want peace."
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz claims that during Zelenskyy's conference call with European leaders while he was in Canada, they promised to fully back his peace initiatives.
Ukraine and its European supporters have been accused by Russia of attempting to "torpedo" a prior US-brokered proposal to end hostilities.
Participating in the conference call were EU leaders Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa, who pledged to continue pressuring the Kremlin to reach a compromise and declared that the EU's support for Ukraine would never waver.
Trump has not committed to the new peace idea thus far. Zelenskyy "doesn't have anything until I approve it," the president stated in a Friday interview with Politico. "So we'll see what he's got."
In order to create demilitarized buffer zones, Ukraine may need to withdraw its forces from the east as part of a strategy to end the war along its present front lines.
As a result, it includes Kyiv's clearest recognition of potential territorial concessions to date. However, it does not envision Ukraine leaving the 20% of the eastern Donetsk region that it still holds, which is Russia's primary territorial demand.
Ending the hostilities in Gaza and Ukraine is the main focus of Trump's self-proclaimed second term as "president of peace." However, he acknowledges that the conflict in Ukraine has been much more difficult than he anticipated, and the president has frequently expressed his dissatisfaction with both sides for not being able to reach a ceasefire.
Zelenskyy told reporters in Canada that a major topic of discussion in Florida will be security guarantees. "Security guarantees must be simultaneous with the end of the war, because we must be confident that Russia will not start aggression again," he said.
"We require robust security assurances. We'll talk about this and the terms." Ukraine maintains that it requires additional financial and military assistance from the US and Europe, particularly in the form of drones.
During Zelenskyy's visit on Saturday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney met with him and pledged CAN$2.5 billion (US$1.82 billion) in new economic aid to support Ukraine's post-conflict reconstruction.
Hundreds of thousands of people in the Kyiv region lost power and heating during the most recent Russian strike, which saw 500 drones and 40 missiles bombard the Ukrainian capital and its infrastructure.
