Trump begins planning for Putin-Zelenskyy meeting while affirming US
help with security guarantees
[August 19, 2025]
By SYLVIE CORBET, SAMYA KULLAB and AAMER MADHANI
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Monday he's begun
arrangements for a face-to-face meeting between Vladimir Putin and
Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss a pathway to end Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine, while affirming that the U.S. would back European security
guarantees aimed at preventing Moscow from reinvading its neighbor once
the current conflict ends.
Details of the security guarantees and Trump’s efforts to arrange peace
talks were still evolving as an extended meeting among Trump, Zelenskyy
and other European leaders wrapped up at the White House.
But as they emerged from their talks, the leaders expressed guarded
optimism that Trump could be finding momentum in his quest to fulfill
his campaign promise of ending the grinding war.
The “most important” outcome of the meeting was the “U.S. commitment to
work with us on providing security guarantees,” French President
Emmanuel Macron told reporters.
Trump said he would forge ahead with arrangements for a meeting between
Zelenskyy and Putin. He spoke by phone with Putin during Monday's talks
with Zelenskyy and the leaders of Britain, Finland, France, Germany and
Italy as well as the president of the European Commission and head of
NATO.
The developments come amid a significant measure of trepidation on the
continent that Trump is pressing Ukraine to make concessions that will
only further embolden Putin after the U.S. leader hosted the Russian
president for an Alaska summit last week.
“I called President Putin, and began the arrangements for a meeting, at
a location to be determined, between President Putin and President
Zelenskyy,” Trump said in a social media post. “After that meeting takes
place, we will have a Trilat, which would be the two Presidents, plus
myself. Again, this was a very good, early step for a War that has been
going on for almost four years.”
It was not clear if Putin has fully signed on to such talks.
Russia state news agency Tass cited Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri
Ushakov saying Putin and Trump “spoke in favor” of continuing direct
talks between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations. Ushakov said they
also discussed “the idea of raising the level of the direct
Russian-Ukrainian negotiations.”
Zelenskyy told reporters following the White House meeting that if
Russia does “not demonstrate a will to meet, then we will ask the United
States to act accordingly.”
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said in an appearance on Fox News that
“if Russia is not playing ball” on direct talks with Ukraine, “the
United States plus Europe will do more when it comes to tariffs and
sanctions” on Moscow.
Zelenskyy previously had said he wanted Russia to agree to a ceasefire
before any meeting between himself and Putin, but he said Monday that if
the Ukrainians started setting conditions, the Russians would do the
same.
“That’s why I believe that we must meet without any conditions, and
think about what development there can be of this path to the end of
war,” Zelenskyy said.
Earlier, Trump said during talks with Zelenskyy and the European leaders
that a potential ceasefire and who gets Ukrainian territory seized by
Russia should be hashed out during a face-to-face meeting between the
warring countries' two leaders.
“We’re going to let the president go over and talk to the president and
we’ll see how that works out,” Trump said.
That was a shift from comments Trump made soon after meeting Putin last
week in which he appeared to tilt toward Putin’s demands that Ukraine
make concessions over land seized by Russia, which now controls roughly
one-fifth of Ukrainian territory.
Questions about US and NATO involvement
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.
[to top of second column]
|
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, from left,
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Finland's President Alexander
Stubb, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President Donald
Trump, France's President Emmanuel Macron, Italy's Prime Minister
Giorgia Meloni, Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz and NATO
Secretary General Mark Rutte stand before a group photo in the Grand
Foyer of the White House, Monday, Aug. 18, 2025, in Washington. (AP
Photo/Alex Brandon)
Zelenskyy said deep U.S. involvement in the emerging security
guarantees is crucial.
“It is important that the United States make a clear signal, namely
that they will be among the countries that will help to coordinate
and also will participate in security guarantees for Ukraine,”
Zelenskyy said.
Speaking Monday before the White House meetings took place, Russia’s
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova rejected the idea of a
possible NATO peacekeeping force in Ukraine. She said such a
scenario could lead to further escalation and “unpredictable
consequences."
Trump's engagement with 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 Zelenskyy had shown
insufficient gratitude for U.S. military assistance.
At the start of Monday's meeting, Zelenskyy presented a letter from
his wife, Olena Zelenska, for Trump's wife, Melania.
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 a dark jacket and
buttoned shirt. 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.
European leaders arrived in Washington looking to safeguard Ukraine
and the continent from any widening aggression from Moscow.
Ahead of Monday's 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.
Zelenskyy in his own post late Sunday, responded, “We all share a
strong desire to end this war quickly and reliably.” He said “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
European leaders suggested forging a temporary ceasefire is not off
the table. Following his meeting with Putin on Friday, Trump dropped
his demand for an immediate ceasefire and said he would look to
secure a final peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine — a
sudden shift to a position favored by Putin.
German and French leaders on Monday praised Trump for opening a path
to peace, but they urged the U.S. president to push Russia for an
immediate ceasefire.
“I would like to see a ceasefire from the next meeting, which should
be a trilateral meeting," said German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Trump, for his part, reiterated that a broader, war-ending peace
agreement between the two countries is “very attainable," but “all
of us would obviously prefer the immediate ceasefire while we work
on a lasting peace.”
___
Kullab reported from Kyiv, Ukraine. Associated Press writers Chris
Megerian and Darlene Superville in Washington, Farnoush Amiri in New
York, Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England, John Leicester in
Le Pecq, France, Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn,
Estonia, and Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved |
