Russia must accept fire in Ukraine before negotiations can move towards a formal peace agreement, the main European leaders told Donald Trump in the White House on Monday, urging the president of the United States to “press Russia” in their impulse to end the war.
The meeting had a historical style with six European government leaders, NATO general secretary and the president of the European Commission converged in Washington for discussions with the president, a burst of diplomatic activity after Trump's summit last week with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alask continent.
Trump met for the first time with the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, at the Oval office, giving an affable tone after his last and disastrous meeting in the room in February. This time, Trump emphasized his “love” for the Ukrainian people and their commitment to provide security guarantees for kyiv in a last peace agreement with Russia.
Zelensky only offered praise and gratitude to Trump, telling journalists who had their “best” meeting so far.
But an extended meeting with Zelensky and the chancellor of Germany, the presidents of France and Finland, the prime ministers of the United Kingdom and Italy, and the bosses of NATO and the European Commission hinted at a more challenging path for the flourishing effort of peace.
President Trump speaks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, left in the foreground, while French president Emmanuel Macron listens during a meeting at the White House on Monday.
(Alex Brandon / Associated Press)
“The next steps ahead are the most complicated now,” said German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. “The road is open: you opened it, but now the road is open for complicated negotiations, and to be honest, we would all like to see the fire, no later than the next meeting.”
“I can't imagine that the next meeting takes place without a fire,” Merz added. “So we work on that. And we press Russia.”
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, sat severely during the beginning of the meeting before echoing Merz's call.
“His idea of asking for a truce, a high fire or at least to stop the murders,” Macron said, “it is a necessity and we all support this idea.”
Trump had agreed with his European counterparts on the need for a high fire for months. Zelensky first agreed to one in March. But Putin has refused, pressing the Russian advantages on the battlefield, and in Anchorage on Friday, he convinced Trump to leave his calls to immediately stop the fight.
“All of us would obviously prefer a high immediate fire while we work in a lasting peace. Maybe something like that could happen, at this time, it is not happening,” Trump said at the meeting. “But President Zelensky and President Putin can talk a little more about that.”
“I don't know if necessary,” Trump added. “You can do it through the war. But I like the stop the fire from another point of view: you immediately stop the murder.”
All European leaders emphasized Trump to share their desire for peace. But the president of the commission, Ursula von der Leyen, requested a “fair” peace, and Zelensky would not be publicly involved with journalists about the central demand of Putin: a surrender of vast strips of Ukrainian territory to Russian control.
Putin first invaded Ukraine in 2014, occupying the Crimean Peninsula in a stealthy operation and financing an attack in the eastern region of Donbas using power forces. But he launched a large -scale invasion of the whole country in 2022, which led to the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II.
In a moment of hot microphone, before the media were expelled from the extended meeting with the European leaders, Trump told Macron that he believes that the Russian president and former KGB officer would agree with a peace agreement due to their personal relationship.
He “wants to make a deal for me,” he said, “as crazy as it seems.”
Guarantees of 'article 5
European leaders said that detailed security guarantees of the United States, for Ukraine, specifically, and more widely for Europe, were at the top of the agenda for Monday meetings, including the perspective of US troops in the field in Ukraine to enforce any future peace agreement.
When asked if the US forces would be involved, Trump did not rule out, saying: “We will talk about that.”
“When it comes to security, there will be a lot of help,” he said in the Oval office. “It will be good. They are the first line of defense, because they are there, they are Europe. But we will also help them. We will be involved.”
Von der Leyen, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer praised the Trump administration for discussing what he called security guarantees “similar to article 5” for Ukraine, referring to a provision of the letter of organizations of the North Atlantic Treaty that establishes that an attack is an attack on all.
But the disposition also provides countries with the alliance of a wide discretion on whether to participate in a military response to a attack on a companion member.
Starmer and Macron have expressed their disposition for months to send British and French troops to Ukraine. But Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Monday that Moscow would oppose the deployment of NATO troops to the country as “provocative” and “reckless”, creating a possible crack in negotiations.
President Trump walks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the head of the White House protocol, Monica Crowley, in the White House.
(Alex Brandon / Associated Press)
Despite the Gulf between Europe and Russia, Trump expressed hope during the day that he could schedule a trilateral meeting with Putin and Zelensky, possibly in a matter of days. He planned to call Putin shortly after European leaders left the White House, he told the journalists.
Trump's team floated inviting Zelensky to attend negotiations in Alaska on Friday, and Zelensky has said he is willing to participate in a trilateral meeting. He repeated his interest with Trump on Monday and asked him to attend.
But Moscow has not yet committed to a trilateral summit. Before Friday's meeting, Russian officials said the conditions were not correct for direct conversations between Putin and Ukrainian President. The Russian leader has repeatedly questioned the legitimacy of Zelensky and has tried to kill him on numerous occasions.
Quiet in the territorial 'swaps'
In the Oval office, a Fox News reporter asked Zelensky if he was “prepared to continue sending Ukrainian troops to death”, or if “he would accept to draw the maps again.” The Ukrainian President concluded.
“We live under the attacks of each day,” Zelensky replied. “We need to stop this war, to stop Russia. And we need support: American and European partners.”
Trump and his team largely adopted the Putin position on Friday that Russia should be able to maintain the Ukrainian territory that he has occupied by force, and possibly even more Donetsk, which is part of the Donbas region and remains in Ukrainian control, in exchange for an end of the fighting. But European officials silently kept the idea on Monday.
The Ukrainian Constitution prohibits the granting of the territory without the support of a public referendum, and the surveys indicate that 3 out of 4 Ukrainians oppose the earth in an attempt to end the war.
Steve Witkoff, the president's envoy for special missions, said on Sunday that Putin agreed to approve legislation through the Kremlin that would guarantee the end of the wars of the conquest in Ukraine, or in other places in Europe.
But Russia has made similar commitments before.
In 1994, the United States and Great Britain signed an agreement in Budapest with Ukraine and Russia that apparently guaranteed security for kyiv and promised to honor the territorial integrity of Ukraine. In return, Ukraine resigned from his nuclear weapons.
