European leaders to join Zelenskyy in Washington after Trump embraces Putin stance on war

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13 hours ago

WASHINGTON —European leaders will join Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Washington this week as he meets with Donald Trump at the White House, rallying around Ukraine's wartime president after Trump appeared to embrace a peace stance held by Vladimir Putin after their summit.
United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, President of the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte are all set to travel to the United States for the the talks on Aug. 18.
The meeting at the White House comes after a dramatic summit between Trump and Putin in Alaska that saw the U.S. president welcome the Russian leader to American soil for the first time in nearly a decade and pull back from his threat to slap new sanctions on Moscow, even though the session produced no major breakthrough in peace negotiations.
After the meeting, Putin declared that an 'agreement' had been reached that could solve the 'Ukrainian issue' and restore 'business-like' relations with the United States. Minutes later, Trump said there was merely progress toward a deal without providing details.
'There were many, many points that we agree on,' Trump told reporters after the summit in Alaska without elaborating. 'A couple of big ones that we haven't quite gotten there,' he added. 'So there's no deal until there's a deal.'
More: Putin spoke first and other key moments from Alaska summit
Trump has pushed for a meeting between Putin, Zelenskyy and himself to discuss a ceasefire, the exchange of prisoners and possible "land swaps," as part of an agreement to end Russia's war on Ukraine.
But after meeting with Putin, and talking with Zelenskyy and European leaders by phone on Aug. 16, he said he would stop chasing a ceasefire and pursue a war-ending peace agreement. Trump also announced that he would be meeting with Zelenskyy at the White House.
European leaders said a day later that they would join Zelenskyy in Washington. At a previous White House meeting with Trump, the Ukrainian leader got into a televised dispute with Trump and Vice President JD Vance. The vice president called Zelenskyy "disrespectful," and Trump told the Ukrainian leader he was in "no position to dictate."
In an interview on CBS' "Face the Nation," Secretary of State Marco Rubio cast the fight as water under the bridge. Zelenskyy and top Ukrainian officials have had positive calls and meetings with Trump and Vance since.
"They're not coming here tomorrow to keep Zelenskyy from being bullied," Rubio said of European leaders.
On social media, Zelenskyy emphasized that European leaders must be involved in discussions about security guarantees for Ukraine.
"I am grateful for the invitation. It is important that everyone agrees there needs to be a conversation at the level of leaders to clarify all the details and determine which steps are necessary and will work," he said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Zelenskyy told reporters later that "Putin has many demands, but we do know all of them" and they will take time to review.
"It's impossible to do this under the pressure of weapons, so it's necessary to ceasefire and work quickly on a final deal," he said.
European leaders also participated in a Aug. 17 emergency virtual meeting of the Coalition of the Willing, the group of countries that have offered to provide security guarantees to Ukraine after the war.
Several world leaders traveling to Washington were expected to attend the meeting, including Macron, Merz and Starmer. Zelenskyy attended from Brussels, where he met with von der Leyen.
On CNN's "State of the Union," Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff said Putin agreed to a work around to allow America and Europe to provide post-war security guarantees to Ukraine without admitting the country to NATO, something Putin has described as a red-line.
More: 'No deal': Takeaways from Trump's Alaska summit with Putin
"We got an agreement that the United States and other European nations could effectively offer Article 5-like language to cover a security guarantee," he said.
Article 5 of the NATO treaty states that an attack on one member nation is an attack on all and lays out the terms for individual and collective defense.
Zelenskyy called the stance a "significant change" and thanked Trump for his support but said there were "no details" of how it would work and the role that Europe and America would play. "This is our main task, we need security to work in practice, like Article 5 of NATO, and we consider EU accession to be part of security guarantees."
Von der Leyen said after their meeting that Ukraine must be able to uphold sovereignty and territorial integrity and said there can be no limitations on the Ukrainian military's ability to work with other countries.
Ukraine backers and Trump critics panned summit that included a red carpet, flyover and a ride for Putin in the U.S. president's limousine as a concession to Russia.
Trump did not immediately respond but complained on the eve of the Zelenskyy visit about news coverage of the summit in a Truth Social post that claimed that even if he "got Russia to give up Moscow as part of the Deal" his critics "would say I made a terrible mistake and a very bad deal."
(This story has been updated to include new information.)
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: European leaders to join Zelenskyy for Trump White House meeting