Putin And Zelensky Set For Peace Summit After Trump Talks
Hopes of a breakthrough rose after Trump said he had spoken by phone with Russian counterpart Putin -- whom he met in Alaska last week -- following a "very good" meeting with the Europeans and the Ukrainian president at the White House.
It would be the first meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders since Moscow's brutal invasion nearly three and a half years ago, and comes as Trump tries to live up to his promise to quickly end the war.
Trump, 79, wrote on his Truth Social network that "everyone is very happy about the possibility of PEACE for Russia/Ukraine."
"At the conclusion of the meetings, I called President Putin, and began the arrangements for a meeting, at a location to be determined, between President Putin and President Zelensky," Trump said.
Trump said he would then hold a three-way summit with the Ukrainian and Russian leaders.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Putin had agreed to the bilateral meeting within the next two weeks but there was no confirmation of a date or location.
Zelensky confirmed to reporters outside the White House he was "ready" for a bilateral with bitter foe Putin, whose invasion of Ukraine has led to tens of thousands of deaths.
In Moscow, a Kremlin aide said that Putin was open to the "idea" of direct talks with Ukraine.
The Ukraine war has ground to a virtual stalemate despite a few recent Russian advances, but Trump's summit with Putin last Friday failed to produce any ceasefire.
Zelensky then rushed to the White House to meet with Trump after the US president increasingly pushed the Ukrainian leader to make concessions to Russia.
The leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Finland, the European Commission and NATO then announced that they would be coming too, in a pointed show of support.
Zelensky also met one-on-one in the Oval Office with Trump in their first encounter in the heart of the US presidency since their acrimonious blow-up there in February.
The Ukrainian president said the meeting was their "best" yet, with little of the tensions that erupted when Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated him in front of TV cameras for not being "grateful" for US support.
Trump even complimented Zelensky on his black jacket, after the Ukrainian was criticized by right-wing media because he failed to change his trademark war-leader's outfit for a suit during the February visit.
The US president meanwhile said he had discussed security guarantees for Ukraine, adding that Putin had agreed to them despite ruling out Kyiv's long-held dream of joining the NATO alliance.
Trump said the guarantees "would be provided by the various European Countries, with a coordination with the United States of America."
NATO chief Mark Rutte told reporters at the White House it was a "very successful meeting" with "the president really breaking the deadlock."
"Today was really about security guarantees, the US getting more involved there, and all the details to be hammered out over the coming days," he said.
Zelensky said allies would formalize Ukraine security guarantees within 10 days.
The presence of the European leaders however also underscored continuing nervousness about whether Trump will pivot towards Putin as he has on a number of occasions.
Trump had pushed Ukraine ahead of the meeting to give up Crimea and abandon its goal of joining NATO -- both key demands made by Putin.
French President Emmanuel Macron called Monday for stepping up sanctions against Russia if Putin does not move forward on peace with Ukraine.
Finnish President Alex Stubb said Putin was not "to be trusted."
Germany's Merz meanwhile said Ukraine should not be forced to surrender its Donbass region to Russia in talks.
"The Russian demand that Kyiv give up the free parts of Donbass corresponds, to put it bluntly, to a proposal for the United States to have to give up Florida," Merz told reporters. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Donald Trump participate in a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on August 18, 2025 AFP Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is greeted by US President Donald Trump (L) upon arrival at the White House West Wing in Washington, DC, on August 18, 2025. AFP US President Donald Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders at the White House AFP US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Alaska last week AFP A Ukrainian military member carries a portrait of late Ukrainian soldier of the Unmanned Systems "Achilles" Regiment Nataliia Ilnytska, who was killed by artillery shelling in the Donetsk region fighting Russian troops, during her funeral ceremony in Irpin, northwest of Kyiv, on August 18, 2025, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. AFP
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
DW
33 minutes ago
- DW
The significance of the Donbas in Russia's war in Ukraine – DW – 08/20/2025
At a recent meeting with his US counterpart, Russian President Vladimir Putin once again suggested that full control of Donbas was a central criterion for ending the war in Ukraine. Why is the region so important to him? In their meeting in Alaska on Monday,Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, are reported to have agreed that Ukraine should cede Donetsk and Luhansk. Putin wants Ukraine's armed forces to withdraw completely from the areas. In exchange, he would freeze the fighting along the rest of the front line — particularly in the southern Ukrainian regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, which are currently largely occupied by Russian forces. In recent years, Putin has repeatedly emphasized the importance of Donetsk and Luhansk, which together make up the Donbas. He says the region is historically linked to Russia and part of the legacy of the Soviet Union. In terms of constitutional law, however, the region belongs to Ukraine — a fact that was already undisputed in the Soviet era. Though the Crimean Peninsula was only transferred from Russia to Ukraine in 1954 by the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev — a source of dispute in Russia to this day — the Donetsk and Luhansk regions have been part of Ukraine since the founding of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1919. And, for a long time, this was undisputed. The Donbas has long had a strong Russian character. As early as the 19th century, and in Soviet times later, it was an industrial heartland, rich in natural resources. As the coal-mining, steel and chemical sectors were developed in the 20th century, people from all over the Soviet Union, above all from Russia, moved here in search of work. Even before 2014, a clear majority of the population spoke Russian; while many people in the more western parts of Ukraine wanted closer ties to the European Union than to the Kremlin, this part of eastern Ukraine maintained close ties with Moscow. The former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, who was supported by the Kremlin, was born in Donetsk, and it was in this region that most of his base lived. It was when he was overthrown during the Maidan revolution of 2014 and fled to Russia that the Donbas became a bone of contention between Moscow and Kyiv. Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula, and unrest spread in eastern Ukraine. Armed groups, supported by Russian weapons and paramilitaries, announced the establishment of self-proclaimed "people's republics" in Donetsk and Luhansk. If the Kremlin was hoping for wide support from Russian-speaking Ukrainians, it was soon to be proved wrong. In fact, the separatist war in eastern Ukraine fueled resentment of the Kremlin. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who grew up speaking Russian, won a landslide victory in the 2019 presidential election, winning in the areas of eastern Ukraine still held by Kyiv. His approach to end the conflict without giving up Ukrainian sovereignty met with broad approval. The Donbas was a leitmotif for Putin when he launched Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In a televised speech, he justified his "special military operation" by saying that the self-proclaimed people's republics had asked Russia for help. He even claimed that the Russian-speaking residents in the areas of eastern Ukraine that were controlled by Kyiv faced "genocide." Today, all of the Luhansk region and about 70% of Donetsk are under the Kremlin's control. Thus, about 88% of the Donbas is occupied by Russia. More than 4 million people are estimated to live in the two regions, which boast not only rich deposits of coal and iron ore, but also lithium, cobalt, titanium and other rare earths that are key for high-tech goods. The two regions are also vital for the Kremlin to maintain a land connection to the Crimean Peninsula, which can only be reached from Russian territory via the Kerch bridge. Should the Kremlin be granted control of the Donbas and the front line in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions be frozen, it effectively would mean that Russia's occupation of these areas would continue, Crimea would be accessible via land. And Ukraine would have no access to the Sea of Azov, an inlet connected to the Black Sea that is currently bordered by Ukraine and Russia. For Ukraine, too, the significance of the Donbas goes beyond economics. The government has established a "fortress belt" in the areas that it still holds. It is the military's most important line of defense, and it has made it so far impossible for Russia to advance further into central Ukraine. The fortress belt comprises several key cities and fortified positions, including Kramatorsk, Sloviansk and Kostyantynivka, which Ukraine has held onto doggedly despite heavy losses. Behind this belt lie the open plains of central Ukraine, which would be extremely vulnerable to a Russian offensive without a line of defense. Thus, Zelenskyy will do his best to not give up the remaining areas of Donbas without far-reaching and reliable security guarantees. This would in any case be hard for him to do from a domestic point of view. The constitution does not allow the president to make such a concession, which would be extremely unpopular in Ukraine. According to a survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, about 75% of Ukrainians are against territorial concessions to view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
Int'l Business Times
2 hours ago
- Int'l Business Times
Polar Bear Waltz: Fake Trump-Putin AI Images Shroud Ukraine Peace Effort
From a fake image of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin dancing in the snow with a polar bear to a fabricated photo of European leaders waiting somberly outside the Oval Office, AI-enabled disinformation has clouded the diplomatic push to end the war in Ukraine. The online fakery -- dubbed widely as AI slop -- underscores how easily artificial intelligence tools can flood the internet with false and satirical content around major global events. These creations also highlight the challenge of policing bogus content as tech platforms offer creators monetization incentives for viral posts. In hundreds of online posts mocking European leaders as powerless mediators snubbed by Trump, one such image purported to show French President Emmanuel Macron and other top officials waiting somberly in a White House corridor with their heads bowed. "This is utter humiliation of these corrupt scumbags. Absolutely beautiful," said one post on X from a conservative political commentator that AFP has previously fact-checked for spreading misinformation about Ukraine. Such posts -- in multiple languages including Greek, German and French -- gained traction as European leaders joined Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House Monday for talks with Trump following the US president's summit with Putin in Alaska. AFP fact-checkers identified visual inconsistencies that indicate the image including Macron was AI-generated. Some of the individuals depicted in the image also do not match those seen in official photographs from the high-stakes meeting. Macron and other European leaders represented a group of Ukraine's allies known as the "Coalition of the Willing" for White House consultations. But multiple pro-Kremlin sources sharing the AI-generated image ridiculed them as the "coalition of those in waiting." The image was also amplified by sites operated by the Pravda network, a well-resourced Moscow-based operation known to circulate pro-Russian narratives globally, the disinformation watchdog NewsGuard said in a report. The falsehood was an illustration of how "pro-Kremlin sources often seize on high-profile meetings involving European leaders to spread false claims," NewsGuard said. In other viral posts, an AI-generated clip purported to show Trump and Putin skidding down snow-covered slopes, eating ice-cream beside a snowman, and waltzing with a polar bear to country music. And in another AI video, Trump and Putin were depicted brawling on a red carpet leading from an airplane staircase, trading punches and kicks as secret service agents idle in the background. The tongue-in-cheek posts offer a window into a social media landscape increasingly filled with AI-generated memes, videos and images competing for attention with -- and sometimes drowning out -- authentic content. As tech platforms scale back content moderation, AI videos spread rapidly, muddying the waters around serious diplomatic efforts to end the three-year war in Ukraine. Trump on Tuesday ruled out sending American troops to back up any Ukraine peace deal but suggested air support instead, as European nations began hashing out security guarantees ahead of a potential Russia summit. AI tools are flooding the internet with fake and satirical content. AFP
DW
2 hours ago
- DW
US: White House launches official TikTok account – DW – 08/20/2025
The popular China-based video sharing app has been facing a US ban over security concerns, although President Donald Trump has continued to extend the deadline. The White House on Tuesday launched an official TikTok account, despite the China-based video-sharing app facing a ban in the US on the grounds of national security concerns. "America we are BACK! What's up TikTok?" read a caption on the account's first post on the popular video sharing app, a 27-second clip. The account went live with a video showing footage of Trump declaring: "I am your voice." A couple of hours after the first video was posted there were just under 19 thousand followers, although US President Donald Trump's own TikTok account has 110.1 million followers. Trump has continued to allow the platform to operate in the US while extending the deadline for TikTok to find a non-Chinese buyer. The current extension is due to expire in mid-September. Trump had initially tried to ban the social media network during his first term as president, but has since reversed his position and has credited it with helping him gain support among young voters in his return to the White House. "The Trump administration is committed to communicating the historic successes President Trump has delivered to the American people with as many audiences and platforms as possible," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. "President Trump's message dominated TikTok during his presidential campaign, and we're excited to build upon those successes and communicate in a way no other administration has before," she added. There is concern among US lawmakers that user data could fall into the hands of China's government. Trump has been working on a deal for US investors to buy the app from TikTok's Chinese parent, ByteDance. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
