Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will have to like a U.S.-backed peace plan to halt Russia’s invasion and ultimately approve it, U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters on Friday speaking in the Oval Office after a meeting with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.

“He’ll have to like it, and if he doesn’t like it, then you know, they should just keep fighting … at some point he’s going to have to accept something,” he said.

President Trump responded to several questions regaring his proposed 28-point peace plan to end the war in Ukraine.

“I’ve spoken with that people. We have a plan. That’s, horrible. What’s happening? It’s a war that should have never happened. It would have never happened if Vice President. And it’s a shame. And I thought they should have acted quicker. But it’s a cold winter. And a lot of the, a lot of the. You talk about utilities, but a lot of the big, energy producing plants have been under attack, to put it mildly, to put it nicely. Yeah. We have, a way of getting peace. We think we have a way of getting peace. He’s going to have to approve it. So sad. So many people, you know, last month, they lost 25,000 soldiers. This is something. We haven’t seen anything like this since the Second World War. And they’re averaging 6 or 7000 a week between the two of them dead soldiers. And it goes on and on. And, I think they’re getting reasonably close, but, it’s I don’t want to predict,” he said.

Trump’s 28-point peace plan demands provisions that the Kremlin has long demanded and that have been previously dismissed as non-starters for Kyiv, including that Ukraine cut its armed forces by more than half and cede swaths of territory not yet occupied by Russia. Also, the 28-point peace plan notes that “Ukraine will receive a reliable, NATO-style security guarantee: the U.S. and its allies could respond with military force if Russia attacks Ukraine in the future.