Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Hold Talks with Donald Trump Following Meeting with Vladimir Putin

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Key Points

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy plans to meet US President Donald Trump in Washington.
Zelenskyy said he had a discussion with the US leader after his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
During an interview, Trump said the onus may be on Zelenskyy to “get it done” when it comes to a peace agreement.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy plans to meet US President Donald Trump in Washington after Trump’s summit with Russia’s Vladimir Putin secured no agreement to end the war in Ukraine.

Zelenskyy said he held a “long and substantive” conversation with Trump on Saturday after the US leader met Putin in Alaska.

He thanked Trump for an invitation to meet in person in Washington on Monday (local time) and said they would “discuss all of the details regarding ending the killing and the war”.

Zelenskyy reiterated the importance of involving Europe.

“It is important that Europeans are involved at every stage to ensure reliable security guarantees together with America,” he said.

“We also discussed positive signals from the American side regarding participation in guaranteeing Ukraine’s security.”

Zelenskyy said he spoke to Trump one-on-one and then in a call with other European leaders.

In total the conversations lasted an hour and a half.

Trump’s meeting with Putin

Trump said on Friday that he and Putin did not reach an agreement to resolve Moscow’s war in Ukraine after a nearly three-hour summit in Alaska, though he characterised the meeting as “very productive.”

“There were many, many points that we agreed on,” Trump said at a joint press conference with Putin. “I would say a couple of big ones that we haven’t quite got there, but we’ve made some headway. So there’s no deal until there’s a deal.”

Trump and Putin each spoke for a few minutes to reporters and took no questions.

They spoke in a meeting that also included US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump’s special envoy to Russia, Steve Witkoff, foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

It was not clear whether the talks had produced meaningful steps toward a ceasefire in the deadliest conflict in Europe in 80 years, a goal that Trump had set at the outset.

In brief remarks, Putin said he expected Ukraine and its European allies to accept the results of the US-Russia negotiation, warning them not to “torpedo” the progress toward a resolution.

“I expect that today’s agreements will become a reference point, not only for solving the Ukrainian problem, but will also launch the restoration of business-like, pragmatic relations between Russia and the United States,” Putin said.

During an interview with Fox News Channel before leaving Alaska, Trump insisted that the onus going forward might be on Zelenskyy “to get it done”, but said there would also be some involvement from European nations.

Trump had expressed hope a truce in the war that Putin started will bring peace to the region as well as bolster his credentials as a global peacemaker worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize.

For Putin, the summit is already a big win that he can portray as evidence that years of Western attempts to isolate Russia have unravelled and that Moscow is retaking its rightful place at the top table of international diplomacy.

Putin is wanted by the International Criminal Court, accused of the war crime of deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. Russia denies allegations of war crimes and the Kremlin has dismissed the ICC warrant as null and void. Russia and the US are not members of the court.

Both sides deny targeting civilians in the war that Russia launched on its smaller neighbour in February 2022. But thousands of civilians have died in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainian.

Meeting with NATO leaders

Trump did not speak to reporters on his flight back to Washington.

When his plane landed, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump was on the phone with NATO leaders — including German Chancellor Freidrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer — after a lengthy call with Zelenskyy.

Trump then disembarked Air Force One without speaking to reporters. He did not respond to shouted questions about the phone calls as he climbed into his limousine.

There was no immediate comment on Saturday from European leaders who, like Zelenskyy, did not have a place at the table at Friday’s summit.

Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Ushakov, said on Russian state television Saturday that a potential trilateral meeting between Trump, Putin and Zelenskyy has not been raised in US-Russia discussions.

“The topic has not been touched upon yet,” Ushakov said, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

Russian attacks on Ukraine continued overnight, using one ballistic missile and 85 Shahed drones, 61 of which were shot down, Ukraine’s Air Force said.