President Donald Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European allies at the White House Monday celebrated Russian President Vladimir Putin’s concession of NATO-like security protections for Ukraine as part of a future peace deal between Ukraine and Russia.
In a social media post on Monday night, Trump said he called Putin after the meetings were over and began arrangements for a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy, at a location to be determined. After that meeting, all three would meet, Trump said.
At the White House earlier, Zelenskyy and officials from Western Europe called Putin’s acceptance of security guarantees for Ukraine protecting the nation against another attack a major step toward ending the three-year-old war.
Dating to before the war, one point of tension between Ukraine and Russia has been Ukraine’s increasingly warm relationship with the West, with potential membership in NATO a major issue for Putin.
But Trump said Putin accepted something like it during the pair’s meeting in Alaska last week.
“The Alaska summit reinforced my belief that, while difficult, peace is within reach,” Trump said before a group meeting in the White House’s East Room. “In a very significant step, President Putin agreed that Russia would accept security guarantees for Ukraine.”
Trump and Zelenskyy met one-on-one in the Oval Office before a handful of European leaders joined them for a multilateral meeting in the East Room.
During introductions for the multilateral meeting, Zelenskyy said it had been his best meeting with Trump to date, and he was “very happy” with Trump about the possibility of winning security guarantees.
“We spoke about it, and we will speak more about security guarantees,” he said. “This is very important that (the) United States gives such (a) strong signal and is ready for security guarantees.”
The other attendees Monday were NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Finnish President Alexander Stubb.
‘Article 5-like’
Several European allies highlighted the issue of security guarantees for Ukraine, which they compared to the NATO charter’s Article 5 that compels every member state to defend any other member that has been attacked.
“It’s very good to hear that we’re working on the security guarantees,” von der Leyen said. “Article 5-like security guarantees: so important.”
The next step in the peace process would be to set up direct talks between Putin and Zelenskyy, possibly also to include Trump.
Trump said he had spoken to Putin “indirectly” on Monday and that he planned to phone the Russian president following the meeting with European leaders.
Ceasefire needed?
Before meeting with Putin, Trump had supported a ceasefire as a path toward a permanent end to the war, though he came out of the Alaska summit closer to Putin’s position that a ceasefire was not necessary before a final peace agreement.
Monday, he said he would like a ceasefire to immediately end violence, but that it was not strictly necessary from a diplomatic point of view. The United States had helped negotiate the ends of other conflicts without a temporary ceasefire in place, he said.
“All of us would obviously prefer an immediate ceasefire while we work on a lasting peace,” he said. “I don’t know that it’s necessary.”
Germany’s Merz pushed back, saying a ceasefire should be a precondition for a Putin-Zelenskyy meeting.
“I can’t imagine that the next meeting would take place without a ceasefire,” Merz said. “So let’s work on that, and let’s try to put pressure on Russia, because the credibility of these efforts we are undertaking today are depending on at least a ceasefire from the beginning of the serious negotiations.”
Smoother meeting with Zelenskyy in suit
At the open-press portion of Trump’s meeting with Zelenskyy, the two appeared on friendlier terms than they had during the Ukrainian leader’s last Oval Office visit in February, when Trump and Vice President JD Vance complained Zelenskyy was not appreciative enough of U.S. aid.
As the February meeting turned heated, Trump told Zelenskyy he had “no cards” to fight Russia on his own or make demands of the United States.
But Monday, Trump resisted an option to return to that argument, brushing off a reporter’s question about which country had “better cards.”
And Zelesnkyy also wore an all-black suit Monday after a writer at a pro-Trump media outlet questioned him at the February meeting about wearing military-style attire.
“You look fabulous in that suit,” the same writer said Monday.
“I said the same thing,” Trump echoed.
This post contains content that was first published on Michigan Advance and republished here under a Creative Commons License.
