Over nearly four years of wartime leadership, analysts say the Ukrainian leader has repeatedly played weak hands wisely. A U.S. peace plan may be his biggest test.

As high-stakes peace negotiations continued in Geneva, tensions briefly flared between Washington and Kyiv after President Donald Trump criticised Ukraine for showing “zero gratitude” for U.S. support.

With most Ukrainians rejecting a surrender, he would court a crisis with his own military if he accepted major concessions to Russia.

US President Donald Trump (left), who initially promised to end the war in "24 hours", has gone from admiring Russian President Putin and calling Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky a "dictator", to slapping Moscow with major sanctions and hinting at Ukraine taking its land back. PHOTO: AFP

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday that he hoped “there will be a result” as top US, Ukrainian and European officials meet in Geneva, Switzerland, to discuss next steps for ending the war in Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has thanked the United States, every American heart, and personally President Donald Trump for the assistance that, starting with Javelins, has been saving Ukrainian lives.

Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on X, “Ukraine is grateful to the United States, to every American heart, and personally to President Trump.”

The 28-point plan hammered out by US and Russian envoys and put to Ukraine this week came with a deadline and an implicit threat: Sign up or face the risk of being abandoned.

Corruption probes have on occasion targeted Zelensky’s administration, and he has often clashed with the agency behind the latest one, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU). But no investigation has posed a greater threat to the president’s standing among the people of Ukraine,