Trump pushes for a peace deal, invites Zelenskyy to White House after Putin summit
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is abandoning his pursuit of a ceasefire in Russia's war against Ukraine and pushing for a peace deal after an Alaskan summit with Vladimir Putin failed to produce an immediate agreement.
Trump said in an early morning Truth Social post that after speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders by phone "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, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold up."
Trump said Zelenskyy would be coming to Washington on Aug. 18 for an Oval Office meeting with both leaders after a contentious Feb. 28 clash, when Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated Zelenskyy and accused him of being ungrateful.
More: 'No deal': Takeaways from Trump's Alaska summit with Putin
The Trump administration paused intelligence sharing and weapons shipments to Ukraine after the incident. Zelenskyy declined to apologize for his part in the spat in the immediate aftermath. But he sent Trump a conciliatory letter that helped put the relationship back on track several days later.
Trump started to turn away from Putin and toward Zelenskyy in late April after Russia bombarded Kyiv with missiles. He said he'd allow Europe to purchase weapons from the United States for Ukraine in mid-July and threatened to hit Russia and its trading partners with sanctions and tariffs if Putin did not agree a peace deal in short order.
The resulting summit with Putin in Alaska was lauded by both presidents as productive but ended without a concrete agreement and no mention of a ceasefire. Trump said in an interview with Fox News that would be up to Zelenskyy to accept an unspecified deal that Putin forward during nearly three hours of closed door talks. He said the next step in the process would be for Zelenskyy and Putin to meet in person at a summit of their own that he offered to mediate.
Zelenskyy was the first to reveal his plans to visit Washington next week in an overnight post on X. He said he and Trump spoke by phone during the U.S. president's flight home. They talked for for roughly and hour and a half and were joined by European leaders during the latter part of the call, he said.
"In my conversation with President Trump, I said that sanctions should be strengthened if there is no trilateral meeting or if Russia tries to evade an honest end to the war. Sanctions are an effective tool," he said. "Security must be guaranteed reliably and in the long term, with the involvement of both Europe and the U.S. All issues important to Ukraine must be discussed with Ukraine's participation, and no issue, particularly territorial ones, can be decided without Ukraine."
In a statement of their own European leaders threw their support behind a Putin-Zelenskyy summit with Trump and pushed for U.S.-backed security guarantees for Ukraine.
"It will be up to Ukraine to make decisions on its territory," the leaders said. "International borders must not be changed by force."
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