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Boston Globe
2 hours ago
- Boston Globe
Zelenskyy brings backup to the White House as Trump aligns more closely with Putin
By most accounts, the European officials want to ensure that Trump has not pivoted too close to the Russian side and does not try to strong-arm Zelenskyy into a deal that will ultimately sow the seeds of Ukraine's dissolution. And they want to safeguard against the risk of the United States, the linchpin of European security since NATO's creation in 1949, undermining that interest. In a call with Zelenskyy on Saturday, Trump offered support for U.S. security assurance for Ukraine after the war, a shift from his stance that Europe should bear the burden of protecting the country, though the specifics were unclear. Advertisement At a news conference Sunday in Brussels, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Union's executive arm, stressed the importance of security guarantees for Ukraine and respect for its territory. But she also said it was paramount to 'stop the killing' and urged talks among the presidents of Russia, Ukraine and the United States 'as soon as possible.' Advertisement One senior European diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of angering Trump, described a sense of panic among European allies. The diplomat had not seen a meeting like the one set for Monday come together so quickly since just before the Iraq War. The foremost concern, the diplomat said, was to avoid another scene like the one that took place in February when Zelenskyy met with Trump in front of the television cameras at the White House. At that meeting, Trump berated the Ukrainian president, saying 'you don't have the cards' in the war -- essentially telling a weak foreign power to bend to the demands of a far more powerful one. The president did so again Friday night, after Putin flew back to the Russian Far East, telling a Fox News interviewer that Ukraine was going to have to realize that Russia was a more 'powerful' country, and that power meant Zelenskyy was going to have to make concessions. On Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who sat in on the meetings with Putin at the U.S. air base outside Anchorage, Alaska, disputed the idea that the Europeans were coming as a posse to protect Zelenskyy from a repeat of the February shouting match. 'They're not coming here to keep Zelenskyy from getting bullied,' Rubio insisted to Margaret Brennan on CBS' 'Face the Nation.' 'They are coming here tomorrow because we've been working with the Europeans,' he said, listing the many meetings the United States had engaged in before and after the Putin visit. 'We invited them to come.' European officials said Saturday that Trump told Zelenskyy he was free to bring guests to the meeting, and later the White House extended invitations to several European leaders. Advertisement Whatever the motive for the leaders to upend their schedules on short notice, there is little question that elements of the negotiation will test the cohesiveness of the Atlantic alliance. Putin's agenda is larger than just seizing part or all of Ukraine. For nearly a quarter-century, his grandest ambition has been to split NATO, dividing European allies from the United States. As Europe and Ukraine struggle to navigate Trump's sudden reversal of strategy for ending a war that has stretched well past three years, Putin has a renewed opportunity to realize his dream. The United States and its European allies now appear to be pursuing different negotiating strategies. The differences have been long brewing. But in the weeks before the Putin meeting, they broke out into the open. 'We're done with the funding of the Ukraine war business,' Vice President JD Vance said flatly a week ago. The Europeans, however, have promised continued support, through a grouping of countries operating outside of the NATO alliance. They got Trump to promise to supply weapons, as long as the United States was paid for them from European coffers. The message was clear: Defending Ukraine was Europe's problem, not Washington's. That was a wedge that Putin sought to exploit in Anchorage, and he did it skillfully. Trump has adopted many of Putin's talking points, and few of the West's. Even before he met face to face with Putin, he assured the Russian leader that Ukraine's application to join NATO would be put on long-term hold -- a position that his predecessor, Joe Biden, also took. At various moments, he hinted that Ukraine invited invasion by applying to the alliance and to membership in the European Union. Advertisement After the Friday summit with Putin, he went another step. Trump and European allies had agreed last week that a ceasefire must precede a peace accord, but he abandoned that view and sided with the Russian leader. 'With Trump abandoning the ceasefire, but making no reference to the 'severe consequences' he threatened, we are at a dangerous moment for the alliance,' said James G. Stavridis, a retired Navy admiral who served as NATO's supreme allied commander from 2009-13, when the United States still viewed Russia as a NATO partner, if a difficult one. This is exactly the kind of split that European leaders were trying to avoid after Trump's return to power in January. NATO's new secretary-general, Mark Rutte, a former prime minister of the Netherlands, visited Washington frequently for quiet meetings with Trump. He was determined to avoid the kind of public breach that took place in the first term, when Trump came to the edge of withdrawing the United States from what he called an 'obsolete' alliance. Rutte helped engineer the announcement in June, at a NATO summit, that nearly all members of the alliance had committed to spend 5% of their gross domestic product on defense. (Of that, 1.5% is infrastructure spending only tangentially related to military spending.) That gave Trump an early win -- and demonstrated that, even if a decade late, Europe was getting serious about taking responsibility for its own defense. Trump took credit, and left the summit praising NATO's reforms. Then European leaders designed the program to buy U.S. weapons for Ukraine, recognizing its appeal to the president. The United States could remain Ukraine's arms supplier, but at no cost to American taxpayers. Advertisement The strategy seemed to be paying off a few weeks ago, when Trump castigated Putin for holding friendly conversations while continuing to kill civilians. He set deadlines and threatened to impose secondary sanctions on countries that were buying oil from Russia. For the first time since Trump's inauguration, Washington's approach, including the threat of new sanctions on Russian oil and gas if there was no ceasefire, and Europe's continued military and economic pressure seemed roughly aligned. Last Wednesday, European leaders talked with Trump, and he agreed to hold firm with Putin that a ceasefire must precede a longer peace negotiation. That alignment is what blew up in Anchorage. 'It was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement,' Trump wrote on his social media site early Saturday. Trump's flip-flops stand in contrast to Putin's determination to stay the course with the war, even as the body count of Russians killed has soared. 'Peace will come when we achieve our goals,' he proclaimed in late 2023. Even then, Putin privately was sending signals that he was open to discussing a ceasefire, but only if it froze existing battle lines -- meaning Ukraine would have to cede control over roughly 20% of its territory. His overtures were rebuffed at the time. But now the Russian military is making considerable gains, so Putin no longer has interest in a ceasefire. 'They feel like they've got momentum in the battlefield,' Rubio said, 'and frankly, don't care, don't seem to care very much about how many Russian soldiers die in this endeavor.' Advertisement 'It's a meat grinder,'' he added, 'and they just have more meat to grind.' That reality would seem to suggest that the timing is hardly right for a peace agreement. Putin may calculate his best strategy is to drag out the talks. But when European and U.S. officials gather at the White House on Monday, they will have more to discuss than just boundaries. The Europeans have to find a way to bring Trump on board for concrete security guarantees for Ukraine -- which could include a peacekeeping force that would deter Putin from restarting the war in a few years. In his conversation with European leaders after the Putin summit, Trump suggested for the first time that he might be willing to join that effort -- though the assumption is that he would contribute U.S. intelligence, not troops. In London on Sunday, after a virtual meeting of European countries that call themselves a 'coalition of the willing' -- a phrase used in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars -- British Prime Minister Keir Starmer issued a statement that commended Trump for his 'commitment to providing security guarantees for Ukraine.' That phrasing seemed intended to lock him into the effort. The statement reiterated that the United Kingdom and other European nations were ready to 'deploy a reassurance force once hostilities have ceased, and to help secure Ukraine's skies and seas and regenerate Ukraine's armed forces.' The United States has never been that specific. This article originally appeared in .
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Trump cranks up pressure on Zelensky ahead of his high-stakes White House return
President Donald Trump is ratcheting up pressure on Ukraine to agree to terms to end the war with Russia, echoing some of Moscow's talking points two days after meeting President Vladimir Putin. Trump will host a summit Monday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and a bodyguard of European leaders in the most important moment yet in a quickening push to end the brutal conflict that followed Russia's 2022 invasion. The White House meeting is also one of the most critical days for European security and the Western alliance since the end of the Cold War, and it will test Trump's sincerity and his capacity to lead Ukraine and Russia toward an exit ramp likely to satisfy neither side. It follows Trump's summit with Putin on Friday in Alaska, widely viewed outside the administration and MAGA world with dismay as the US president welcomed his guest, who is accused of war crimes, with applause. Trump offered several major symbolic and process concessions to Putin for few public undertakings in return. But Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff insisted Sunday on CNN that Russia had softened its opposition to post-war Western security arrangements for Ukraine and was ready to make significant land swaps in any deal to end the fighting. 'We agreed to robust security guarantees that I would describe as game-changing,' Witkoff told Jake Tapper on 'State of the Union.' Differing perceptions of the Trump summit will influence Monday's White House talks. European officials told CNN privately that Putin called for Ukraine to hand over swaths of the critical strategic and economic powerhouse region of Donbas, which his troops have failed to seize in three and a half years of fighting. This would be all but impossible for Zelensky to accept — politically, constitutionally, economically and strategically. His forces have suffered severe losses defending farmland and cities seen as a bulwark against future Russian aggression. No one outside the US and Russian delegations knows for sure what happened in Alaska. And the president's invite to European leaders and his energetic push for peace should not be prejudged before vital meetings take place. Trump insisted on social media Sunday that 'great progress' was being made. But hanging over Monday's White House meetings is his warning to Ukraine after the summit with Putin. 'Make a deal,' Trump said on Fox News. 'Russia is a very big power, and they're not.' The president exerted more pressure on the Ukrainian leader on Sunday night in a post on Truth Social that also echoed Russia's stance that Zelensky's country can never join NATO. 'President Zelensky of Ukraine can end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight,' Trump wrote. This prompted concern in Kyiv and other European capitals that Trump will try to impose Putin's ideal vision of a settlement on Zelensky and that if the Ukrainian leader refuses this impossible choice, Trump will blame Kyiv and walk away from the conflict entirely. This points to a vital dynamic in Monday's White House meeting, which could turn into an extraordinary, televised spectacle if the president opens large portions of it to the cameras — a possibility for which his visitors must prepare. Is Trump prepared to act as a broker who will bring Ukraine and its European supporters and Russia to a point where they can accept painful concessions despite their bitter antipathy? Or does Trump's acceptance of Putin's opposition to an immediate ceasefire and postponement of tough new US sanctions on Moscow mean the US will now side with Russia against Ukraine and Europe? 'Trump has done something useful in his drive to end the war: Negotiations have shown the world that Putin — not the Ukrainians or Europeans — is the one who's unwilling to stop fighting without conditions like handing over more land than he has already illegally conquered,' said Josh Rudolph, managing director and senior fellow of strategic democracy initiatives at the German Marshall Fund. 'The question is now which side America is on.' Trump is a vital player despite mistrust of his motives Despite criticism of the Alaska summit and Trump's empathy toward Putin, the US president remains the potential catalyst to any peace deal. While there's little sign the Russian leader wants peace, US pressure, properly applied, might be the one thing that could stop him fighting. And while Europe will play a major role in Ukraine's security after any deal, it lacks influence with Putin and can't fulfill a promised peace enforcement mission without Trump's support. In this context, speculation in the Washington bubble over whether Trump is trying to rush the Ukraine war to a conclusion to secure a Nobel Peace Prize is pointless. If he could somehow end the conflict fairly, who cares about his motives? Bad Oval Office memories If Europe is secured, Trump might even fulfill his craving for the prize that his first presidential predecessor, Barack Obama, won. However, US support for Israel as it comes closer to fully occupying Gaza amid starvation conditions might still disqualify him from the Nobel Committee's consideration. Zelensky's arrival will stir memories of his disastrous last Oval Office visit in February. Shocking live footage of Trump and Vice President JD Vance berating the Ukrainian leader means his escort this time from the leaders of France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Finland, NATO and the European Commission is seen as a protection squad. But Europe has far more at stake than Zelensky's reputation. The possibility that Russia could triumph in Ukraine and win vindication for its illegal invasion is the biggest geopolitical threat to Europe since the fall of the Soviet Union. 'This is existential also for European security. So, minimizing the role of Europe here, be it the United Kingdom, be it Poland, be it Finland, be it France, be it Germany, is not the way to go,' Fiona Hill, who served as a Russia expert in Trump's first term, said Sunday on CBS' 'Face the Nation.' 'Europe has to have an equal say in all of this,' Hill said. 'This is about Europe's future and the future of European security, not just about Ukraine's.' But it will be hard to create momentum for genuine peacemaking even as the administration pushes for a three-way summit among Trump, Putin and Zelensky, possibly as soon as the end of this week. 'The challenge is to try to achieve alignment between what look like very disparate things — what Trump wants, what the Europeans want, what Putin wants,' said Nicholas Dungan, a senior member of the European Leadership Network. 'The Europeans want a sovereign Ukraine. Trump wants a peace deal. These are not the same thing,' said Dungan, who is also CEO of CogitoPraxis, a strategic advisory firm. What Putin wants may be impossible for Ukraine and its European allies to accept. The Russian leader dictated terms alongside Trump in Alaska, demanding attention to the 'root causes' of the war. This is his shorthand for various factors including the ousting of Zelensky, huge cuts to Ukrainian armed forces that would compromise Kyiv's capacity to repel any future invasion, and a redeployment of NATO forces from Moscow's former Soviet-era orbit in Eastern Europe. The disconnect helps explain why Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and Trump's national security adviser, is more downbeat than the US president or Witkoff. 'We made progress in the sense that we identified potential areas of agreement, but there remains some big areas of disagreement,' Rubio said on ABC. 'We're still a long ways off. I mean, we're not at the precipice of a peace agreement; we're not at the edge of one.' Trump's mood will be critical European leaders traveling to the White House include French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and European Council President Ursula von der Leyen. Trump has good personal relationships with several of them, especially Meloni; Stubb, a golf partner; and Starmer. Rutte is seen as something of a Trump whisperer. But the president's mood will be crucial, especially after critical media coverage of his lavish welcome for Putin. Europe's influence is also in question. Trump had adopted the European position that a ceasefire was a vital first step in peacemaking and said he'd be disappointed if he didn't secure one in Alaska. But after meeting with Putin, he backed Russia's stance that a push for a full peace deal is best. This was a win for Russia, since a full settlement could take months to negotiate and give more time for its forces to seize more land while continuing attacks against civilians. Europe is far more skeptical than the White House about the sincerity of any undertakings Putin offered to Trump on Friday. Macron wrote on X on Saturday that it will be 'essential to draw all the lessons from the past 30 years, in particular from Russia's well-established tendency not to honor its own commitments.' But Witkoff said Trump's acceptance of Putin's ceasefire sequencing was a good sign. 'We made so much progress at this meeting with regard to all the other ingredients necessary for a peace deal that we, that President Trump, pivoted to that place,' Witkoff told CNN's Tapper. The Russian president tried to split the allies while in Alaska. 'We expect that Kyiv and European capitals will perceive (the talks) constructively and that they won't throw a wrench in the works; they will not make any attempts to use some backroom dealings to conduct provocations to torpedo the nascent progress,' Putin said. Witkoff pushed back at criticism of Trump by insisting that Putin had accepted a security guarantee among Ukraine, European powers and the US similar to NATO's Article 5 clause that an attack on one is an attack on all. This undertaking would not, however, be linked to NATO in any way. He also told CNN that Putin had offered 'concessions on several of the regions,' but refused to say what they were. And there has been no confirmation from the Kremlin. But in return for an Anchorage welcome that purged his international pariah status, Putin offered political gifts to Trump. These included an echo of the president's false claims that mail-in voting is undemocratic and backing for Trump's claim the Russians would not have invaded Ukraine had he been in office. US bullishness about an Article 5-style guarantee is also a little strange, since Putin would demand extraordinary steps in return. And there are already concerns that Trump wouldn't honor NATO's mutual defense clause if Russia attacked one of the alliance members close to its borders, perhaps in the Baltic states. The idea he'd would risk war with Russia to save Ukraine seems absurd. This might also put Trump at odds with his political base, which shares his doubts about America's protection of European allies and his desire to avoid more foreign wars. Conservative media has been running interference for Trump all weekend, with several key MAGA-friendly sites already portraying Zelensky as an obstacle to peace and the impediment to yet another Trump 'win.' But the imagery of Trump as a peacemaker is a powerful one among his most loyal supporters.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Trump Rates Putin Ceasefire Flop as 10 Out of 10
President Donald Trump has rated his meeting with Vladimir Putin as a 10 out of 10, despite leaving Alaska without a ceasefire deal and providing little detail on what he achieved from the summit. Speaking after his high-stakes meeting with Putin, Trump also put the onus on Ukraine to end the war that Russia started, declaring, 'It's really up to Zelensky to get it done.' 'It's still not a done deal at all,' Trump told Fox News' Sean Hannity on Friday. 'And Ukraine has to agree. But it's a terrible war and they're losing a lot—both of them are—and hopefully it can get completed.' What exactly Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would have to agree to is not yet clear, as Trump refused to tell even Hannity, one of his most loyal, high-profile cheerleaders. But ahead of the meeting, the president had said that any progress would probably involve Ukraine giving up territory to Russia as well as its ambitions to enter NATO. Asked how he would grade the summit on a scale of one to 10, the president replied, 'I think the meeting was a 10 in the sense that we got along great. And it's good when, you know, two big powers get along—especially when they're nuclear powers.' Friday's summit at Alaska's Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson was Putin's first time on U.S. soil in 10 years. After years of being frozen out by the West, the Russian president had been invited by Trump to Alaska in the hope of brokering a deal to end the war in Ukraine, which began in February 2022 when Putin tried to claim the country as his own. 'It's interesting because someone said if I get this settled, I'll get the Nobel Peace Prize,' said Trump, who has also helped to broker peace agreements in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. 'But what about the other six wars or whatever? I mean those are big.' He also shared two of the things the pair discussed during their three-hour meeting: the 2020 election, which they both agreed was 'rigged,' and the investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election. 'Putin said one of the most interesting things,' Trump recalled. 'He said 'your election was rigged because you have mail-in voting… And he said that to me because we talked about 2020. He said, 'You won that election by so much.'' The president also used the interview to heap praise on his Russian counterpart, whom the U.S government has previously sanctioned and who also faces arrest warrants for war crimes issued by the International Criminal Court. 'He's a strong guy, tough as hell,' Trump said. He also offered advice to Zelensky: 'Make a deal.' 'Russia is a very big power, and they're not,' the president said of Ukraine.
