By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders have held talks with US president Donald Trump at the White House to discuss plans to bring an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The meeting between the European leaders and the US president comes shortly after Trump’s three-hour closed-door meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday, where Putin said they reached an “understanding.”
Trump said the US would back Europe in protecting Ukraine as part of a deal to end the war with Russia.
“When it comes to security, there’s going to be a lot of help,” Trump told reporters, adding that European countries would be involved. “They are a first line of defence because they’re there, but we’ll help them out.”
Zelenskiy hailed the promise as “a major step forward,” adding that the guarantees would be “formalized on paper within the next week to 10 days” and saying Ukraine offered to buy about $90 billion worth of U.S. weapons.
The tone on Monday was much warmer than a disastrous Oval Office meeting that saw Trump and Vice President JD Vance publicly criticize the Ukrainian leader in February.
But a peace deal still appeared far from imminent.
Both Trump and Zelenskiy said they hoped Monday’s gathering would eventually lead to three-way talks with Putin, whose forces have been slowly grinding forward in eastern Ukraine.
In a social media post late on Monday, Trump said he had called the Russian leader and begun arranging a meeting between Putin and Zelenskiy, to be followed by a trilateral summit among the three presidents.
Trump told European leaders that Putin suggested that sequence, according to a source in the European delegation.
While the Kremlin has not publicly announced its agreement, a senior U.S. administration official said the Putin-Zelenskiy meeting could take place in Hungary. The pair will meet within the next two weeks, according to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
The last direct talks between Russia and Ukraine took place in Turkey in June. Putin declined Zelenskiy’s public invitation to meet him face-to-face there and sent a low-level delegation instead.
Meanwhile, European leaders – who rushed to Washington to back up Zelenskiy – urged Trump to insist that Putin agree to a ceasefire in the 3-1/2-year-old war before any talks can advance.
Trump previously backed that proposal but reversed course after meeting with Putin on Friday, instead adopting Moscow’s position that any peace agreement be comprehensive.
Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he liked the concept of a ceasefire but the two sides could work on a peace deal while the fighting continued.
“I wish they could stop, I’d like them to stop,” he said. “But strategically that could be a disadvantage for one side or the other.”
Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron voiced support for a ceasefire as a prerequisite to any direct talks with Russia. Macron also said European leaders would eventually need to be included in any peace talks.
“When we speak about security guarantees, we speak about the whole security of the European continent,” he told Trump.
Trump and Zelenskiy spoke in private before joining the contingent of European leaders including heads of Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Finland, the European Union and NATO for more than two hours of multilateral talks.
Watch Live in the video below:
Video Courtesy of The White House.