KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — President Donald Trump on Sunday claimed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “isn't ready” to sign off on a U.S-authored peace proposal aimed at ending the Russia-Ukraine war.
Trump was critical of Zelenskyy after U.S. and Ukrainian negotiators completed three days of talks on Saturday aimed at trying to narrow differences on the U.S. administration's proposal. But in an exchange with reporters on Sunday night, Trump suggested that the Ukrainian leader is holding up the talks from moving forward.
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President Donald Trump talks to the media while walking the red carpet before the 48th Kennedy Center Honors, Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025, at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
FILE- Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov attends a Kyrgyzstan-Russia talk at the Administrative complex Yntymak-Manas Ordo, in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Nov. 26, 2025. (Alexander Kazakov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)
In this photo provided by Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade press service, a soldier tests land drones in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025, (Andriy Andriyenko/Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade via AP)
In this photo, provided by Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade press service, a soldier tests land drones in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025, (Andriy Andriyenko/Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade via AP)
“I’m a little bit disappointed that President Zelenskyy hasn’t yet read the proposal, that was as of a few hours ago. His people love it, but he hasn’t,” Trump claimed in an exchange with reporters before taking part in the Kennedy Center Honors. The president added, "Russia is, I believe, fine with it, but I’m not sure that Zelenskyy’s fine with it. His people love it it. But he isn’t ready.”
To be certain, Russian President Vladimir Putin hasn't publicly expressed approval for the White House plan. In fact, Putin last week had said that aspects of Trump's proposal were unworkable, even though the original draft heavily favored Moscow.
Trump has had a hot-and-cold relationship with Zelenskyy since riding into a second White House term insisting that the war was a waste of U.S. taxpayer money. Trump has also repeatedly urged the Ukrainians to cede land to Russia to bring an end to a now nearly four-year conflict he says has cost far too many lives.
Zelenskyy said Saturday he had a “substantive phone call” with the American officials engaged in the talks with a Ukrainian delegation in Florida. He said he had been given an update over the phone by U.S. and Ukrainian officials at the talks.
“Ukraine is determined to keep working in good faith with the American side to genuinely achieve peace,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media.
Trump's criticism of Zelenskyy came as Russia on Sunday welcomed the Trump administration’s new national security strategy in comments by the Kremlin spokesman published by Russia’s Tass news agency.
Dmitry Peskov said the updated strategic document, which spells out the administration's core foreign policy interests, was largely in line with Moscow’s vision.
“There are statements there against confrontation and in favor of dialogue and building good relations,” he said, adding that Russia hopes this would lead to “further constructive cooperation with Washington on the Ukrainian settlement.”
The document released Friday by the White House said the U.S. wants to improve its relationship with Russia after years of Moscow being treated as a global pariah and that ending the war is a core U.S. interest to “reestablish strategic stability with Russia.”
Speaking on Saturday at the Reagan National Defense Forum, Trump’s outgoing Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, said efforts to end the war were in “the last 10 meters.”
He said a deal depended on the two outstanding issues of “terrain, primarily the Donbas,” and the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
Russia controls most of Donbas, its name for the Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk regions, which, along with two southern regions, it illegally annexed three years ago. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is in an area that has been under Russian control since early in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and is not in service. It needs reliable power to cool its six shutdown reactors and spent fuel, to avoid any catastrophic nuclear incidents.
Kellogg, who is due to leave his post in January, was not present at the talks in Florida.
Separately, officials said the leaders of the United Kingdom, France and Germany would participate in a meeting with Zelenskyy in London on Monday.
As the three days of talks wrapped up, Russian missile, drone and shelling attacks overnight and Sunday killed at least four people in Ukraine.
A man was killed in a drone attack on Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv region Saturday night, local officials said, while a combined missile and drone attack on infrastructure in the central city of Kremenchuk caused power and water outages. Kremenchuk is home to one of Ukraine’s biggest oil refineries and is an industrial hub.
Kyiv and its Western allies say Russia is trying to cripple the Ukrainian power grid and deny civilians access to heat, light and running water for a fourth consecutive winter, in what Ukrainian officials call “weaponizing” the cold.
Three people were killed and 10 others wounded Sunday in shelling by Russian troops in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, according to the regional prosecutor’s office.
AP writers Darlene Superville and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed reporting.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
President Donald Trump talks to the media while walking the red carpet before the 48th Kennedy Center Honors, Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025, at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
FILE- Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov attends a Kyrgyzstan-Russia talk at the Administrative complex Yntymak-Manas Ordo, in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Nov. 26, 2025. (Alexander Kazakov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)
In this photo provided by Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade press service, a soldier tests land drones in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025, (Andriy Andriyenko/Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade via AP)
In this photo, provided by Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade press service, a soldier tests land drones in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025, (Andriy Andriyenko/Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade via AP)
MILAN (AP) — The gala crowd at Milan's Teatro alla Scala cheered the season premiere of Dmitry Shostakovich's "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk '' with a 12-minute standing ovation Sunday, as the storied theater synonymous with the Italian repertoire opened with a Russian melodrama for the second time since Moscow's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The crowd of luminaries fully embraced stage director Vasily Barkhatov's bold telling of merchant wife Katerina Izmajilova's fall into a murderous love triangle against the backdrop of Stalin's Soviet Union, right up to the jarring final scene with a Soviet truck barreling into a wedding party, and two characters perishing in burst of flames.
U.S. soprano Sara Jakubiak was showered with carnations and cheers for her tireless portrayal of Katarina, the title character, over the 2 hour and 40 minute opera, and the audience cheered its appreciation for conductor Riccardo Chailly, making his last Dec. 7 gala premiere appearance as music director.
“No one ever expects this,'' Jakubiak said backstage of the enthusiastic reception. ”I am just so happy.''
While the 2022 gala season premier of “Boris Godunov” drew protests from the Ukraininan community for highlighting Russian culture in the wake of the invasion, the premiere of "Lady Macbeth'' inspired a flash mob demonstrating for peace.
Shostakovich's 1934 opera highlights the condition of women in Stalin’s Soviet Union, and was blacklisted just days after the communist leader saw a performance in 1936, the threshold year of his campaign of political repression known as the Great Purge.
A dozen activists from a liberal Italian party held up Ukrainian and European flags in a quiet demonstration removed from the La Scala hubub that aimed “to draw attention to the defense of liberty and European democracy, threatened today by (President Vladimir) Putin’s Russia, and to support the Ukrainian people.’’
Another, larger, demonstration of several dozen people in front of city hall called for freedom for the Palestinians and an end to colonialism, but was kept far from arriving dignitaries by a police cordon. Demonstrations against war and other forms of inequality have long countered the glitz of the gala season premiere that draws leading figures from culture, business and politics dressed in their finest frocks.
Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli was joined by the senator for life Liliana Segre, a Holocaust survivor, and Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala in the royal box. Italian pop stars Mahmoud and Achille Lauro were also among those in attendance.
Chailly began working with Barkhatov on the title about two years ago, following the success “Boris Godunov,'' which was attended by Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, both of whom separated Russia’s politicians from its culture.
But outside the Godunov premiere, Ukrainians protested against highlighting Russian culture during a war rooted in the denial of a unique Ukrainian culture.
Chailly called the staging of Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth" at La Scala for just the fourth time “a must.’’
“It is an opera that has long suffered, and needs to make up for lost time,’’ Chailly told a news conference last month.
La Scala’s new general manager, Fortunato Ortombina, defended the choices made by his predecessor to stage both Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth” and Modest Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov " at the theater whose history is tied to the Italian repertoire.
‘‘Music is fundamentally superior to any ideological conflict,’’ Ortombina said on the sidelines of the news conference. “Shostakovich, and Russian music more broadly, have an authority over the Russian people that exceeds Putin's own.’’
Jakubiak, 47, made her La Scala debut in the title role of Katerina, whose struggle against existential repression leads her to commit murder, landing her in a Siberian prison where she self-immolated to kill herself and her treacherous second husband's new lover — deviating from the original story's drowning. It’s the second time Jakubiak has sung the role, after performances in Barcelona last year, and she said Shostakovich's Katerina is full of challenges.
“That I’m a murderess, that I’m singing 47 high B flats in one night, you know, all these things,’’ Jakubiak said while sitting in the makeup chair ahead of the Dec. 4 preview performance to an audience of young people. “You go, ‘Oh my gosh, how will I do this?’ But you manage, with the right kind of work, the right team of people. Yes, we’re just going to go for the ride.”
Speaking to journalists recently, Chailly joked that he was “squeezing” Jakubiak like an orange. Jakubiak said she found common ground with the conductor known for his studious approach to the original score and composer’s intent.
“Whenever I prepare a role, it’s always the text and the music and the text and the rhythms,'' she said. “First, I do this process with, you know, a cup of coffee at my piano and then we add the other layers and then the notes. So I guess we’re actually somewhat similar in that regard.''
Jakubiak, best known for Strauss and Wagner, has a major debut coming in July when she sings her first Isolde in concert with Anthony Pappano and the London Symphony.
Barkhatov, who at 42 has a flourishing international career, said “Lady Macbeth” is a “very brave and exciting" choice for La Scala's season opening.
Barkhatov's stage direction sets the opera in a cosmopolitan Russian city in the 1950s, the end of Stalin’s regime, rather than a 19th-century rural village as written for the 1930s premier.
For Barkhatov, Stalin’s regime defines the background of the story and the mentality of the characters for a story he sees as a personal tragedy and not a political tale. Most of the action unfolds inside a dark restaurant appointed in period Art Deco detail, with a rotating balustrade creating a kitchen, a basement and an office where interrogations take place — all grim and dingy.
Despite the tragic arc, Barkhatov described the story as “a weird … breakthrough to happiness and freedom.’’
“Sadly, the statistics show that a lot of people die on their way to happiness and freedom,’’ he added.
Stage director Vasily Barkhatov sits during an interview with The Associated Press prior to the dressed rehearsal of Dmitri Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at La Scala Opera House in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
A wig receives final touches ahead of the dress rehearsal of Dmitri Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at La Scala Opera House in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
A wig receives final touches ahead of the dress rehearsal of Dmitri Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at La Scala Opera House in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
External view of Teatro all Scala ahead of the dress rehearsal of Dmitri Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
Soprano Sara Jakubiak has her makeup done ahead of the dress rehearsal of Dmitri Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at La Scala Opera House in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
The stage is prepared ahead of the dressed rehearsal of the Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District, by Dmitri Shostakovich, at La Scala Opera House in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
