President Donald Trump has said a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine is drawing near, telling conservative commentator Benny Johnson in an interview released on Saturday that a breakthrough could be achieved before the December G20 summit at his Trump National Doral resort in Florida. The claim, made three days before the midterm elections, is the president’s most optimistic public assessment of the negotiations in recent weeks, and it arrived on the same weekend that his own secretary of state was striking a markedly more cautious note about whether a negotiated peace is possible at all.
Trump’s exact words, as reported from the interview, were that he thinks the country is getting very close to making a deal, and that there is a real good chance the conflict will be worked out. He acknowledged the bitter enmity between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but maintained that negotiations were progressing toward a settlement. He also said, in a line that has drawn particular attention, that he had not previously been saying a deal was close, a characterisation that sits uneasily with a long public record of similar claims stretching back through his campaign and presidency.
What the Trump Russia-Ukraine peace deal claim actually promises
The interview did not announce an agreement, a date for signature, or terms. It offered an assessment: that a deal is near, that there is a real good chance of resolving the conflict, and that a breakthrough could come before the December leaders’ summit. Trump was responding to speculation that he might bring Russian and Ukrainian representatives together at that summit, which he will host in Florida at the end of the year. He did not say that either leader had agreed to attend such a meeting, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio has previously not ruled out the possibility of Zelenskyy attending, without confirming it.
That distinction matters, because the history of this war’s diplomacy is full of moments when optimism outran events. A meeting between Ukrainian, Russian and American delegations, the first since the winter, is expected in early November, according to recent reporting, and that meeting, rather than any summit set-piece, is where the substance of any agreement would have to be tested. Until negotiators produce text that both Kyiv and Moscow accept, a presidential assessment, however confident, remains a prediction, not a result.
The president’s own framing invites a second caution. In the interview he said he had not been saying a deal was close and was not saying so initially, because of the hatred between the two leaders. In fact, Trump has repeatedly said a deal was close or imminent on many occasions, including during his 2023-2024 campaign, when he promised to settle the war within 24 hours, and on numerous occasions since returning to office, including in April 2025, when he said Russia and Ukraine were very close to a deal, and after his Alaska summit with Putin. Readers who follow this story should therefore treat the new claim as the latest in a series, not as a break with the pattern, and should judge it by what negotiators deliver, not by how confidently it is expressed.
Rubio’s caution, and why it matters
On the same weekend, Rubio told a press conference during the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in Atlanta that he did not know whether a negotiated peace in Ukraine is possible, adding that that is exactly what Washington is trying to find out. The contrast is not necessarily a contradiction: a president can be optimistic while his chief diplomat is careful. But it is a useful corrective, because it shows that inside the administration itself, the question is still open, and the people doing the negotiating are not presenting a deal as done.
Rubio’s Atlanta remarks also reflect the wider diplomatic picture. The foreign ministers’ meeting ended without a joint statement, with divisions over Ukraine, Iran, tariffs and the South China Sea preventing consensus. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, attended, and European diplomats objected to his presence to the point that the traditional group photograph was cancelled. In that setting, a claim that a Ukraine deal is very close sits alongside visible evidence that the world’s major powers are still far apart on the war’s central questions, including territory, security guarantees and the terms of any ceasefire.
Ukraine’s position, as expressed by its officials in recent weeks, has been that it wants a just and lasting peace, but not one imposed on terms that reward aggression, and that it needs continued military support while talks proceed. The United States has recently approved a major sale of Patriot air defence interceptors to Ukraine, after weeks of complaints from Kyiv that its interceptor stocks were dwindling, and Zelenskyy has asked Washington to accelerate deliveries. Those two facts, the arms sale and the peace claim, are not inconsistent, but they point to different theories of how a deal is reached: one through pressure and continued support for Ukraine’s defence, the other through a negotiated breakthrough at the top.
Iran, Cuba and the wider interview
The Benny Johnson interview ranged beyond Ukraine. On Iran, Trump said Washington was determined to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons and said Iranian military capabilities had already been severely degraded. That language echoes his recent warnings that the United States could still take action against one or two remaining Iranian targets, including the fortified site known as Pickaxe Mountain, while Rubio has stressed that Trump has not made a decision about fresh strikes and that diplomatic talks have continued, including through intermediaries. Readers should keep those two strands separate: the president’s public warnings, and the diplomats’ account of ongoing talks, describe the same policy from different angles, and neither, on its own, settles what will happen after the midterms.
On Cuba, Trump predicted that the country’s communist leadership would not remain in power much longer, calling the island a failed country and suggesting that Washington could turn its attention to Havana after addressing Venezuela, with Rubio monitoring the situation closely. He said the United States was going to get people back there very soon, a phrase whose precise meaning he did not elaborate. As with the Ukraine claim, this is a prediction about another government’s future, not an announced policy, and it should be reported as such. Cuba’s government has not, in the reporting reviewed here, responded to the prediction in terms that change the assessment, and no timetable or plan for such a change was set out in the interview.
On Venezuela, the interview’s implication, that Washington’s attention could shift from Caracas to Havana, follows a period in which the administration has kept up pressure on the Venezuelan government while also pursuing diplomacy with Iran and Ukraine. The sequencing matters because it suggests an administration thinking about several regional challenges at once, rather than a single-track foreign policy. It does not, however, amount to a declaration of intent toward Cuba, and readers should be wary of headlines that turn a prediction into a promise of action.
What to watch before December
Three tests will show whether the president’s optimism is justified. The first is the expected early-November meeting of Ukrainian, Russian and American delegations: does it produce anything beyond a commitment to keep talking? The second is whether either Putin or Zelenskyy signals, publicly or through intermediaries, that a framework is acceptable, rather than leaving the claim to stand on Washington’s assessment alone. The third is the December G20 summit itself: does it become a venue for a genuine negotiation, a stage for announcing something already agreed, or simply another summit at which the war is discussed without resolution?
Until those tests are met, the honest summary of this story is narrow. The president of the United States has said, in a friendly interview three days before an election, that he believes a Russia-Ukraine deal is very close and could be worked out before December. His secretary of state has said, in a formal press conference, that he does not know whether a negotiated peace is possible. Both statements are on the record, both come from the same administration, and the gap between them is itself informative. It tells readers that the administration’s public messaging is running ahead of its diplomats’ caution, and that the next few weeks, not the next interview, will decide which voice was right. For the wider context of American warnings to allies about the region, see USN’s earlier report on Washington’s warnings to allies over possible new Iran strikes.
Sources
USN reviewed reporting from multiple outlets for this story. Read more from Yeni Safak, The Express Tribune and Ukrinform.