() President Donald Trump is moving to broker a face-to-face meeting between Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russia’s Vladimir Putin in the coming weeks.

At the White House on Monday, Trump and Zelenskyy met with top European leaders, who aligned their positions particularly when it came to the issue of security guarantees for Ukraine in its war with Russia.

While Russia has so far refused to give up its demands, Trump said his meeting in Alaska with Putin last week led him to believe the Russian leader would “accept security guarantees for Ukraine.”

Details of any potential agreements reached during Monday’s meeting have not yet been revealed, but world leaders have appeared optimistic about the developments.

A coalition of countries willing to help Ukraine held a virtual meeting Tuesday.

“The meeting helped ensure that all countries have a unified understanding of the situation. The meeting confirmed Europe’s unity and determination to support Ukraine in the process, strengthened by the Washington discussions, to achieve lasting peace,” Finnish President Alexander Stubb said on social media.

Trump gives ‘assurance’ no US troops will be on the ground in Ukraine

Trump on Tuesday said Ukraine would not be part of NATO. One of Russia’s demands is that Ukraine not join the defense organization.

“But we’ve got the European nations, and they’ll frontload it, and they’ll have, some of them France, Germany, and a couple of them, U.K. they want to have boots on the ground,” Trump said. “I don’t think it’s going to be a problem, to be honest with you.”

Trump also rejected the idea of American troops defending Ukraine’s border on the ground: “You have my assurance, and I’m president. I’m just trying to stop people from being killed.”

Trump has not ruled out the possibility of air support as part of security guarantees for Ukraine.

“We’re willing to help them with things, especially, probably, if you talk about by air because nobody has stuff we have,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News that aired Monday evening.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt added that air support is “an option and a possibility” in a press conference Tuesday.

Trump called Putin to arrange trilateral meeting

Immediately after Monday’s summit, Trump called Russian President Vladimir Putin to begin arranging a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy, followed by a trilateral meeting with all three leaders. Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff were coordinating with Russia and Ukraine.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called a trilateral meeting to end the war “the sensible next step,” insisting that peace for Ukraine has to involve Ukraine itself. 

“I can’t imagine that the next meeting would take place without a ceasefire,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said during a roundtable discussion. “So let’s work on that, and let’s try to put pressure on Russia because the credibility of these efforts, these efforts we are undertaking today are depending on at least a ceasefire from the beginning of the serious negotiations from next step on.”

The White House said the goal is for Zelenskyy and Putin to meet within the next one to two weeks. It is unclear where the meeting will take place, as Putin was indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in 2023 and is subject to arrest in over 100 countries.

‘s Anna Kutz and partner The Hill contributed to this report.