Washington – The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, will meet with President Donald Trump on Monday afternoon at the White House, a few days after Trump and the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, left a Alaska summit without a high -fire agreement.
Zelenskyy travels to Washington, DC, along with several European leaders, including the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, the general secretary of NATO, Mark Rutte, the United Kingdom Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French president Emmanuel Macron and the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Trump’s sitting with the leaders will come, since he intensified his efforts in recent weeks to end the war in Ukraine, a conflict of more than three years that insists would not have taken place if he had been in office.
After his meeting with Putin, Trump changed his goal of establishing a complete “peace agreement” between Russia and Ukraine, regretting the high fire agreements as unstable. At the same time, the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said on Sunday in “Meet The Press” of NBC News that a high fire “was not out of the table”, although Russia has not agreed to stop fighting.
In a post to Truth social post, Trump seemed to place the responsibility of finishing the war against Zelenskyy, while emphasizing that Ukraine must renounce Crimea and his hopes to join NATO, a key demand of Putin.
“President Zelenskyy of Ukraine can end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants, or can continue fighting,” Trump said.
A day before, Trump indicated in a publication on Saturday that if the conversations with Zelenskyy succeed on Monday, he will facilitate more discussions with Putin with the hope of reaching a permanent end of the war.
The meeting will give leaders the opportunity to discuss future security guarantees for Ukraine, that the special envoy of the United States Steve Witkoff floated as potentially similar to article 5 of NATO.
Ukraine hoped to use the meeting to negotiate a safety guarantee of IRONCLAD, similar to article 5, and convince Trump that a temporary fire is necessary to begin the true peace conversations, according to a Ukrainian source familiar with the objectives. Security guarantees must be obligations at the level of treaty, said the source, which requires the approval of the Senate.
A republican legislator who refused to be identified echoed the need for security guarantees of the United States.
Similarly, a European official said the meeting would focus in part on clarifying how security guarantees would be seen. Trump has presented “exchange”, but the official said that his belief was that Ukraine would never give up his entire oriental region of Donbas, much of which Russia controls. Europe, said the official, probably would also want to participate in any final negotiation for a peace agreement.
Zelenskyy said in an X position on Sunday night he had arrived in Washington. “I am sure we will defend Ukraine, we will effectively guarantee security, and that our people will always be grateful to President Trump,” he said. He stressed that “Russia must end this war, which began.”
The visit of the Ukrainian President will be the first at the White House since an February meeting became an impressive confrontation between Trump, vice president JD Vance and Zelenskyy. The moment, which was developed live on television, surprised Ukrainian allies and marked an abrupt change in the support of the United States years for an ally wrapped in a bloody war that began with the invasion of Russia.
Monday’s meeting occurs after the White House welcomed Putin to Alaska, a controversial movement that obtained more criticism when the United States launched a red carpet for Putin and gave the controversial step of allowing the Russian autocrat to ride private with Trump in “The Beast”, a presidential vehicle.
The meeting, which excluded Zelenskyy, finally concluded without a high fire agreement. The leaders left Alaska after organizing a 12 -minute press event where they did not take questions or announced deliverables.
Trump announced his meeting with Zelenskyy in the early hours of Saturday morning, adding a publication to Truth Social that “if everything works, we will schedule a meeting with President Putin.”
The future of the main conflict points in the discussions to end the war (the state of Ukrainian security and security guarantees occupied by Russian to avoid a future Russian invasion) remained murky during the weekend.
The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said on Sunday that “there must be some security guarantees for Ukraine,” and said the problem would be discussed “in the next few days.” Witkoff said Sunday that security guarantees could resemble article 5 of NATO, which triggers a response from the entire coalition if a member is attacked.
In an interview in “Fox News Sunday”, Witkoff said that “the United States is potentially prepared to be able to give security guarantees of article 5, but not NATO, directly from the United States and other European countries.”
The Ukrainian president celebrated what he called “a historical decision” for the United States to participate in security guarantees, saying in a position to X on Sunday that “they really must be very practical, providing protection on land, in the air and in the sea, and must be developed with the participation of Europe.”
Zelenskyy will also have the opportunity during Monday’s meeting to address Trump’s comments on the future of the Ukrainian land occupied by Russia.
In the days before the Alaska Summit, Trump said the end of the war would include “some exchange of territories.” Zelenskyy quickly knocked down the perspective, saying that “the Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupant.”
Rubio said Sunday in “Meet The Press” of NBC News that “nobody is pressing Ukraine to resign,” referring to the land occupied by Russia. But later that morning, Trump seemed to undermine Rubio’s comments when he published a social user of the truth that declared: “Ukraine must be willing to lose some territory against Russia, otherwise, the more time the war continues, they will continue to lose even more lands!”
Trump left his meeting with Putin without announcing any agreement of high fire or peace. The president told the journalists on the way to Alaska that “I will not be happy” if the meeting did not lead to a high fire. He also said that Russia would face “economically severe” consequences if Putin did not seem interested in peace.
However, Rubio said Sunday at “Meet The Press” that he did not believe that “new sanctions to Russia will force him to accept the high fire.”
Witkoff defended the president after he could not ensure a high fire, saying in “Fox News Sunday” that a high fire often precedes a peace agreement, and “the president has always talked about a high fire until he made many different victories in this meeting and began to realize that we could talk about a peace agreement.”
“The final agreement here is a peace agreement,” Witkoff added.
Trump’s Friday meeting with Putin was a marked contrast of the February trip of Zelenskyy to the White House, when Trump and Vance publicly rebuked Zelenskyy, arguing that he was not sufficiently grateful for the support of the United States.
“You are playing with World War II, and what you do is very disrespectful with the country, this country, that has supported you,” Trump told Zelenskyy at that time. The meeting was finally interrupted.
The two leaders have been known since then, although not in the White House. Trump and Zelenskyy gathered in the Vatican in April outside the Pope’s funeral, and met privately at the NATO summit in June.
Trump falsely called Zelenskyy a “dictator” and falsely accused Ukraine of starting the war. The war began when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
