Trump begins planning for Putin-Zelenskyy meeting while affirming US help with security guarantees
Details of the security guarantees and Trump's efforts to arrange peace talks were still evolving as an extended meeting among Trump, Zelenskyy and other European leaders wrapped up at the White House.
But as they emerged from their talks, the leaders expressed guarded optimism that Trump could be finding momentum in his quest to fulfill his campaign promise of ending the grinding war.
The 'most important' outcome of the meeting was the 'US commitment to work with us on providing security guarantees,' French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters.
Trump said he would forge ahead with arrangements for a meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin. He spoke by phone with Putin during Monday's talks with Zelenskyy and the leaders of Britain, Finland, France, Germany and Italy as well as the president of the European Commission and head of NATO.
The developments come amid a significant measure of trepidation on the continent that Trump is pressing Ukraine to make concessions that will only further embolden Putin after the US leader hosted the Russian president for an Alaska summit last week.
'I called President Putin, and began the arrangements for a meeting, at a location to be determined, between President Putin and President Zelenskyy,' Trump said in a social media post. 'After that meeting takes place, we will have a Trilat, which would be the two Presidents, plus myself. Again, this was a very good, early step for a War that has been going on for almost four years.'
It was not clear if Putin has fully signed on to such talks.
Russia state news agency Tass cited Putin's foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov saying Putin and Trump 'spoke in favor' of continuing direct talks between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations. Ushakov said they also discussed 'the idea of raising the level of the direct Russian-Ukrainian negotiations.'
Zelenskyy told reporters following the White House meeting that if Russia does 'not demonstrate a will to meet, then we will ask the United States to act accordingly.' NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said in an appearance on Fox News that 'if Russia is not playing ball' on direct talks with Ukraine, 'the United States plus Europe will do more when it comes to tariffs and sanctions' on Moscow.
Zelenskyy previously had said he wanted Russia to agree to a ceasefire before any meeting between himself and Putin, but he said Monday that if the Ukrainians started setting conditions, the Russians would do the same.
'That's why I believe that we must meet without any conditions, and think about what development there can be of this path to the end of war,' Zelenskyy said.
Earlier, Trump said during talks with Zelenskyy and the European leaders that a potential ceasefire and who gets Ukrainian territory seized by Russia should be hashed out during a face-to-face meeting between the warring countries' two leaders.
'We're going to let the president go over and talk to the president and we'll see how that works out,' Trump said.
That was a shift from comments Trump made soon after meeting Putin last week in which he appeared to tilt toward Putin's demands that Ukraine make concessions over land seized by Russia, which now controls roughly one-fifth of Ukrainian territory.
Trump stopped short of committing US troops to a collective effort to bolster Ukraine's security. He said instead that there would be a 'NATO-like' security presence and that all those details would be hashed out with EU leaders.
Zelenskyy said deep US involvement in the emerging security guarantees is crucial.
'It is important that the United States make a clear signal, namely that they will be among the countries that will help to coordinate and also will participate in security guarantees for Ukraine,' Zelenskyy said.
Speaking Monday before the White House meetings took place, Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova rejected the idea of a possible NATO peacekeeping force in Ukraine. She said such a scenario could lead to further escalation and 'unpredictable consequences."
Trump's engagement with Zelenskyy had a strikingly different feel to their last Oval Office meeting in February. It was a disastrous moment that led to Trump abruptly ending talks with the Ukrainian delegation, and temporarily pausing some aid for Kyiv, after he and Vice President JD Vance complained that Zelenskyy had shown insufficient gratitude for US military assistance.
At the start of Monday's meeting, Zelenskyy presented a letter from his wife, Olena Zelenska, for Trump's wife, Melania.
Zelenskyy faced criticism during his February meeting from a conservative journalist for appearing in the Oval Office in a long-sleeve T-shirt. This time he appeared in a dark jacket and buttoned shirt. Zelenskyy has said his typically less formal attire since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022 is to show solidarity with Ukrainian soldiers.
European leaders arrived in Washington looking to safeguard Ukraine and the continent from any widening aggression from Moscow.
Ahead of Monday's meeting, Trump suggested that Ukraine could not regain Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, setting off an armed conflict that led to its broader 2022 invasion.
Zelenskyy in his own post late Sunday, responded, 'We all share a strong desire to end this war quickly and reliably.' He said 'peace must be lasting,' not as it was after Russia seized Crimea and part of the Donbas in eastern Ukraine eight years ago and 'Putin simply used it as a springboard for a new attack.' European leaders suggested forging a temporary ceasefire is not off the table. Following his meeting with Putin on Friday, Trump dropped his demand for an immediate ceasefire and said he would look to secure a final peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine — a sudden shift to a position favored by Putin.
German and French leaders on Monday praised Trump for opening a path to peace, but they urged the US president to push Russia for an immediate ceasefire.
'I would like to see a ceasefire from the next meeting, which should be a trilateral meeting," said German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Trump, for his part, reiterated that a broader, war-ending peace agreement between the two countries is 'very attainable," but 'all of us would obviously prefer the immediate ceasefire while we work on a lasting peace.'
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