Media critiques Trump rolling out red-carpet and jet show for Putin meeting in Alaska
'To the events that have involved the president of the United States and the president of Russia … when there was the meeting between the two presidents,' Mr Murray said.
'Can we all just understand … in terms of taste, this is the guy who likes gold in the bathroom, right … perhaps he thought meeting just in the tarmac in Alaska was not fancy enough.'
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Good morning, and thank you for joining our live coverage of today's hastily arranged meetings between US President Donald Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and at least seven European leaders at the White House. The high-powered European delegation is flying into Washington, DC, in a remarkable display of diplomatic support for Ukraine, just days after Trump rolled out the red carpet for Russia's Vladimir Putin in Alaska. Memories of Zelensky's last Oval Office visit, when he was berated by Trump and Vice President JD Vance, will be fresh in their minds. Zelensky was excluded from the Alaska summit, after which Trump signalled that Ukraine should accept some of the Russian demands to end the war. He backed away from his earlier calls for a ceasefire and instead appears to favour a quick peace treaty that would hand the Donbas region to Putin. A ceasefire to allow proper negotiations and strong security guarantees for Ukraine will be among the top items on the Europeans' agenda. Their concerns include that the US isn't putting enough pressure on Putin through sanctions and other penalties, that Trump will push Zelensky to accept a swift deal on unfavourable terms, and the implications of any settlement for broader European security. Trump appeared to harden his position ahead of the meeting, ruling out letting Ukraine join NATO or reclaiming Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, in a flurry of social media posts.
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European leaders and Zelenskyy prepare for key meetings with Donald Trump
European leaders have arrived in Washington for high-stakes talks with US President Donald Trump, who is pressuring his Ukrainian counterpart to give up land and NATO ambitions to stop the war in Ukraine. Mr Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy are expected to meet one-on-one before being joined by British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Finnish President Alexander Stubb. The White House has also said NATO chief Mark Rutte and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen will be in attendance. "A big day at the White House. We have never had so many European Leaders here at one time. A great honor for America!!" Mr Trump wrote on social media. "Let's see what the results will be." Ahead of the critical meetings, Mr Zelenskyy said that Russia should "not be rewarded" for its war. "Putin will commit demonstrative killings to maintain pressure on Ukraine and Europe, as well as to humiliate diplomatic efforts," the Ukrainian leader said on social media. "Russia should not be rewarded for its participation in this war." Monday's meetings follow a summit between Mr Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday that failed to produce a ceasefire. It will be the first time Ukraine's president has visited Washington since a bust-up with Mr Trump and Mr Vance in February, when the two men berated the Ukrainian leader for being "ungrateful." Global affairs analyst Michael Bociurkiw told ABC's The World that European leaders would be trying to prevent a repeat of that meeting between Mr Trump and Mr Zelenskyy. "These are very much the same leaders who refused to give Ukraine everything it asked for at the beginning of the war … it took them a long time to get them to give aid to Ukraine," Mr Bociurkiw said. "I think there is a sense of guilt here that they could have made a big difference in pushing Russia back — they didn't." He added that the Alaska summit would have done nothing to ease their concerns about what Mr Trump might do next. "I think alarm bells went off in all the European capitals after it looked like Mr Trump … fell hook, line and sinker for what Mr Putin had to offer, and now I think he's getting ready to deliver what I think is a poison pill to the Ukrainians," he said. Russia kept up its attacks on Ukraine ahead of the new talks, firing at least 140 drones and four ballistic missiles at the country between late Sunday and early Monday, the Ukrainian air force said. A Russian drone attack on a five-story apartment block in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv just before dawn killed at least seven people, authorities said. Ukrainian shelling attacks in the Russian-occupied parts of the Kherson and Donetsk regions meanwhile killed two people, Moscow-installed authorities said. Mr Trump, who dropped his insistence on a ceasefire in favour of a final peace deal after meeting Mr Putin, said late on Sunday that his Ukrainian counterpart could end the three-and-a-half-year war "almost immediately, if he wants to." "Remember how it started. No getting back Obama given Crimea (12 years ago, without a shot being fired!), and NO GOING INTO NATO BY UKRAINE. Some things never change!!!", Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social. Since the Oval Office row with Mr Zelenskyy in February, Mr Trump has grown more critical of the Mr Putin and shown some signs of frustration as Russia repeatedly stalled on peace talks. But Washington has not placed extra sanctions on Moscow, and the lavish welcome offered to Mr Putin in Alaska on his first visit to the West since he invaded Ukraine in 2022 was seen as a diplomatic coup for Russia. Speaking in Brussels on the eve of his visit to the United States, Mr Zelenskyy said he was keen to hear more about what Mr Putin and Mr Trump discussed in Alaska. He also hailed Washington's offer of security guarantees to Ukraine as "historic." Mr Trump said he spoke to Mr Putin about the possibility of a collective defence guarantee for Ukraine, similar to the one in place for NATO members. The promise would be outside of the framework of the Western military alliance that Ukraine wants to join and which is seen as an existential threat by Russia. Mr Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff said Moscow had made "some concessions" regarding five Ukrainian regions that Russia now fully or partially controls, and that there was an "important discussion with regard to Donetsk and what would happen there." "That discussion is going to specifically be detailed on Monday," he told CNN, without giving details. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 following a referendum denounced as a sham by Kyiv and the West, and did the same in 2022 in four Ukrainian regions — Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk and Zaporizhzhia — even though its forces have not fully captured them. A source briefed on a phone call between Mr Trump and European leaders on Saturday told AFP that the US leader was "inclined to support" a Russian demand to be given territory it had not yet captured in the Donbas, an area that includes the Donetsk and Lugansk regions and that has seen the deadliest battles of the war. In exchange, Moscow would agree to "freeze" the front line in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, regions where Russian forces hold swathes of territory but not the regional capitals, the source cited Trump as saying. Russia had until now insisted that Ukraine pull its forces from all four regions as a precondition to any deal. Mr Zelenskyy has said he is constitutionally bound not to give away any Ukrainian territory. AFP/ABC
