Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump expressed hope that their critical meeting on August 18 with European leaders at the White House could soon lead to three-party talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin to bring an end to his war on Ukraine.
The U.S. president also said he would back European security guarantees for Ukraine as European leaders gathered for the extraordinary White House meeting.
“I think Putin wants to find an answer, too,” Trump told President Zelenskyy and European leaders. “And we’ll see in a certain period of time, not very far from now, a week or two weeks, we’re going to know whether or not we’re going to solve this or is this horrible fighting going to continue.”
Trump stopped short of committing U.S. troops to a collective effort to bolster Ukraine’s security. He said instead that there would be a “NATO-like” security presence and that all those details would be hashed out with EU leaders.
“They want to give protection and they feel very strongly about it and we’ll help them out with that,” Trump said. “I think its very important to get the deal done.”
Trump’s engagement with President Zelenskyy had a strikingly different feel to their last Oval Office meeting in February. It was a disastrous moment that led to Trump abruptly ending talks with the Ukrainian delegation, and temporarily pausing some aid for Kyiv, after he and Vice President JD Vance complained that President Zelenskyy had shown insufficient gratitude for U.S. military assistance.
President Zelenskyy at the start of the meeting presented a letter from his wife, Olena Zelenska, for Trump’s wife, Melania. The U.S. first lady sent a letter to Putin urging him to consider the children impacted by the conflict and bring an end to the brutal 3 1/2 year war.
Trump at one point needled President Zelenskyy over Ukraine delaying elections. They had been scheduled for last year but were delayed because of the ongoing Russian invasion. Ukrainian law does not allow presidential elections to be held when martial law is in effect.
Trump joked that a similar circumstance wouldn’t play well in the U.S.
“So let me just say three and a half years from now — so you mean, if we happen to be in a war with somebody, no more elections, oh, I wonder what the fake news would say,” Trump said.
President Zelenskyy faced criticism during his February meeting from a conservative journalist for appearing in the Oval Office in a long sleeve T-shirt. This time he appeared in dark jacket and buttoned-shirt.
President Zelenskyy has said his typically less formal attire since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022 is to show solidarity with Ukrainian soldiers.
The hastily assembled meeting on August 18 came after Trump met in Alaska on August 15 with Putin, which was also hastily arranged.
Critics have suggested that the meeting was designed to distract the media cycle from Trump’s political crisis over the Jeffrey Epstein files. Trump’s name has been documented in the material, and there are years of photos showing him with the convicted paedophile financier. However, no context of his association with Epstein’s sex crimes has yet been reported.
Showing his support for Putin, Trump has said the onus is now on President Zelenskyy to agree to concessions of land that he said could end the war. Russia now controls roughly one-fifth of Ukrainian territory.
“If everything works out today, we’ll have a trilat,” Trump said, referring to possible three-way talks among President Zelenskyy, Putin, and Trump. “We’re going to work with Russia, we’re going to work with Ukraine.”
Trump said he plans to talk to Putin after his meetings with President Zelenskyy and European leaders.
This marked a sharp departure from just days earlier, when Trump walked into a summit with Russia’s dictator Vladimir Putin pressing for a ceasefire deal and threatening “severe consequences” and tough new sanctions if the Kremlin leader failed to agree to halt the fighting in Ukraine.
Instead, Trump was the one who stood down, dropping his demand for a ceasefire in favor of pursuing a full peace accord — a position that aligns with Putin’s.
After calls with President Zelenskyy and European leaders, Trump wrote as he flew home from the meeting in Alaska that it had been “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.”
President Zelenskyy expressed openness to trilateral talks.
After Trump held one-on-one talks with President Zelenskyy, the two then gathered with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.
The European leaders were left out of Trump’s summit with Putin. They want to safeguard Ukraine and the continent from any widening aggression from Moscow. Many arrived at the White House with the explicit goal of protecting Ukraine’s interests — a rare show of diplomatic force.
DEMOCRATS CALL FOR CONSEQUENCES FOR PUTIN
At home, Democrats expressed alarm at what at times seemed like a day of deference, with Trump clapping for Putin as he walked down a red carpet during an elaborate ceremony welcoming him to the U.S. for the first time in a decade. The two rode together in the presidential limousine and exchanged compliments.
Trump seemed to revel in particular in Putin echoing his oft-repeated assertion that Russia never would have invaded Ukraine if Trump had been in office instead of Democrat Joe Biden at the time.
Before news cameras, Trump did not use the opportunity to castigate Putin for launching the largest ground invasion in Europe since World War II or for human rights abuses he’s been accused of committing. Instead, Putin spoke first and invited Trump to Moscow next.
“President Trump appears to have been played yet again by Vladimir Putin,” said Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “The President rolled out a red carpet and warmly greeted a murderous dictator on American soil and reports indicate he got nothing concrete in return.”
“If President Trump won’t act, Congress must do so decisively by passing crushing sanctions when we return in the coming weeks,” she said.
Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Putin “got everything he wanted,” including a photo-op with Trump.
“He is intentionally murdering civilians, he’s kidnapping children, and now he got to stand next to the President of the United States — legitimized in the view of the world,” the Democrat said.
Ahead of the August 18 meeting, Trump suggested that Ukraine could not regain Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, setting off an armed conflict that led to its broader 2022 invasion.
“President Zelenskyy of Ukraine can end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight,” Trump wrote on social media on August 17. “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!!!”
President Zelenskyy responded with his own post on August 17, saying, “We all share a strong desire to end this war quickly and reliably.” He said that “peace must be lasting,” not as it was after Russia seized Crimea and part of the Donbas in eastern Ukraine eight years ago, and “Putin simply used it as a springboard for a new attack.”
EUROPEAN HEAVYWEIGHTS IN WASHINGTON
Putin opposes Ukraine joining NATO outright, yet Trump’s team claims the Russian leader is open to Western allies agreeing to defend Ukraine if it comes under attack.
“Clearly there are no easy solutions when talking about ending a war and building peace,” Meloni told reporters. “We have to explore all possible solutions to guarantee peace, to guarantee justice, and to guarantee security for our countries.”
European leaders suggested forging a temporary ceasefire is not off the table. Following his meeting with Putin on May 15, Trump dropped his demand for an immediate ceasefire and said that he would look to secure a final peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine — a sudden shift to a position favored by Putin.
At the start of the meeting with European leaders, the German and French leaders praised Trump for opening a path to peace, but they urged the U.S. president to push Russia for a ceasefire.
“I would like to see a ceasefire from the next meeting, which should be a trilateral meeting,” Merz said.
European leaders are still looking for a concrete details about what U.S. involvement would be toward building a security guarantee for Ukraine.
In Europe, the summit was seen as a major diplomatic coup for Putin, who has been eager to emerge from geopolitical isolation.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, praised the summit as a breakthrough in restoring high-level dialogue between Moscow and Washington.
Former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt called the meeting “a distinct win for Putin. He didn’t yield an inch” but was also “a distinct setback for Trump. No ceasefire in sight.”
“What the world sees is a weak and wobbling America,” Bildt posted on X.
Still, Rutte, the NATO Secretary-General, called Trump’s commitment to security guarantees “a big step, a breakthrough.”
President Zelenskyy outlined what he said his country needed to feel secure, which included a “strong Ukrainian army” through weapons sales and training. The second part, he said, would depend on the outcome of Monday’s talks and what EU countries, NATO and the U.S. would be able to guarantee to the war-torn country.
Trump briefed President Zelenskyy and European allies shortly after the Putin meeting. Details from the discussions emerged in a scattershot way that seemed to rankle the U.S. president, who had chosen not to outline any terms when appearing afterward with Putin.
“A VERY BIG MOVE”
European officials confirmed that Trump told them Putin is still seeking control of the entire Donbas region, even though Ukraine controls a meaningful share of it.
Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, said the U.S. and its allies could offer Ukraine a NATO-like commitment to defend the country if it came under attack as the possible security guarantee, with details to be worked out.
President Zelenskyy came into the talks look to prevent a scenario in which he gets blamed for blocking peace talks by rejecting Putin’s maximalist demand on the Donbas. It is a demand President Zelenskyy has said many times he will never accept because it is unconstitutional and could create a launching pad for future Russian attacks.
Senator Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, said it “was also encouraging to hear both presidents reference future meetings” but that Ukraine “must be part of any negotiated settlement and must freely agree to its terms.”
