Trump, Zelensky discuss meeting with Putin as European leaders gather in Washington

Early in his White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump conceded that he had not expected ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to be so hard.

During last year’s election campaign, Mr. Trump even promised to broker a peace agreement within 24 hours of taking office.

“I thought that maybe this would be the easiest” global conflict to end, Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “And it’s not the easiest one. It’s a tough one.”

By the time the day was through, Mr. Trump had taken a step toward that long-sought resolution, agreeing to back security guarantees for Ukraine as part of a deal. He didn’t rule out the possibility that U.S. troops might be sent to Ukraine as part of it. And both he and Mr. Zelensky agreed to seek a trilateral sit-down with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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But the U.S. President also pressed his Ukrainian counterpart to make territorial concessions to Mr. Putin, pushed back against calls for a ceasefire from U.S. allies, and offered little detail on what a security guarantee would look like.

Mr. Zelensky, for his part, aimed studiously to avoid a repeat of his last visit to the Oval Office, during which Mr. Trump publicly berated him for not displaying sufficient gratitude to the United States.

This time, the Ukrainian leader repeatedly thanked Mr. Trump for trying to get a deal and carefully avoided contradicting him. He also brought with him the leaders of Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Finland, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union, in part as a buffer against another explosion by the U.S. President and in part to help resist pressure from Mr. Trump to make concessions to Moscow.

Mr. Zelensky even tried to please his American host on the sartorial front, after Mr. Trump was upset at his decision in February to turn up for the meeting in his usual military-style outfit. This time, the Ukrainian President sported a black suit jacket and trousers. He ribbed Brian Glenn, a pro-Trump pundit who criticized the military duds last time around. “You are in the same suit,” Mr. Zelensky told the journalist. “You see, I changed. You have not.”

The hastily scheduled gathering on Monday followed Mr. Trump’s tête-à-tête with Mr. Putin in Alaska on Friday, at which Mr. Trump conceded to Mr. Putin on the latter’s demand that there be no ceasefire while negotiations proceed.

At the start of the Monday bilateral sit-down with Mr. Zelensky, Mr. Trump agreed, at least in principle, to the Ukrainian President’s request for a security guarantee.

“We will give them very good protection, very good security. That’s part of it,” Mr. Trump said. Asked if Washington would commit troops or send in peacekeepers, he left the door open. “We’re going to work with Ukraine. We’re going to work with everybody.”

When asked what specifically he was seeking in such an arrangement, Mr. Zelensky was blunt. “Everything,” he replied.

“First, a strong Ukrainian army,” he said. “It’s a lot about weapons and people and training issues and intelligence. And second, it will – we will discuss with our partners – it depends on the big countries, on the United States, on all of our friends.”

Mr. Trump has already said that he will agree to Russia’s demand that Ukraine not be allowed to join NATO. His administration has floated the possibility, however, that Ukraine could independently receive a similar assurance as NATO countries that, were it ever attacked again, the U.S. and its European allies would defend it.

At a subsequent East Room meeting, where the rest of the European leaders joined in, Mr. Trump said Mr. Putin had “agreed” at the Alaska summit “that Russia would accept security guarantees for Ukraine.”

“The European nations are going to take a lot of the burden. We’re going to help them. We’re going to make it very secure,” he said. The U.S. President, however, dismissed the prospect of Russia violating a prospective peace deal and attacking Ukraine again as “largely overrated.”

Mr. Trump also made clear that Ukraine agreeing to Russia taking some of its land – a once-unthinkable concession for a U.S. President to make to Moscow – had to be on the table.

“We also need to discuss the possible exchange of territory, taking into consideration the current line of contact,” he said.

With Mr. Zelensky avoiding confrontation with Mr. Trump, it was up to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron to push their host to reverse himself on the question of a ceasefire.

“We all would like to see a ceasefire, at the latest from the next meeting on,” Mr. Merz said. “The credibility of these efforts we are undertaking today depend on at least a ceasefire from the beginning of the serious negotiations.”

Mr. Macron said that a “truce” was a “necessity.”

Mr. Trump was dismissive, saying that he had previously “settled” six different wars, and “I haven’t had a ceasefire” in any of them.

The U.S. President threatened last month to ratchet up sanctions on Russia if it did not agree to a ceasefire. Mr. Putin ignored him and continued attacking Ukraine. Mr. Trump backed off his threat and, after the Alaska meeting, endorsed the Russian President’s position that fighting could continue during peace talks.

Late in the hours-long talks on Monday, Mr. Trump dialled up Mr. Putin. The two discussed having the Russian and Ukrainian presidents first meet bilaterally, followed by a trilateral sit-down that Mr. Trump would also join. No date or location was set.

Later, on social media, the U.S. President trumpeted the day’s events – even as he tried, after a fashion, to manage expectations.

“Everyone is very happy about the possibility of PEACE,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform. “This was a very good, early step.”