Zelensky signals openness to three-way meeting with Trump, Putin

WASHINGTON

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and U.S. President Donald Trump expressed hope that Monday’s critical talks with Ukrainian and European leaders at the White House could lead to trilateral talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin to bring an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Monday's hastily assembled meeting comes after Trump met on Friday with Putin and has said that the onus is now on Zelensky to agree to concessions that he said could end the war.

“If everything works out today, we’ll have a trilat," Trump said, referring to possible three-way talks among Zelensky, Putin and Trump. "We’re going to work with Russia, we’re going to work with Ukraine.”

Trump also said he plans to talk to Putin after his meetings with Zelensky and European leaders.

Zelensky also expressed openness to trilateral talks.

“We are ready for trilateral as president said,” Zelensky said at the start of his meeting with Trump. "It’s a good signal about trilateral. I think this is very good.”

Trump held one-on-one talks with Zelensky.

After Trump held one-on-one talks with 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.

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.

"President Zelensky of Ukraine can end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight," Trump wrote Sunday night on social media. “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!!!”

Zelensky responded with his own post late Sunday, 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 Friday, 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.

French President Emmanuel Macron called Monday for a four-way meeting including Europeans in response to Trump's hopes of bringing together the Ukrainian and Russian presidents.

"I think as a follow up we would need probably a quadrilateral meeting, because when we speak about security guarantees, we speak about the whole security of the European continent," Macron said at the meeting.

European leaders are still looking for a concrete details about what U.S. involvement would be toward building a security guarantee for Ukraine.

Still, Rutte, the NATO Secretary-General, called Trump’s commitment to security guarantees “a big step, a breakthrough.”

Zelensky 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 Zelensky 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.