Trump Sets Stage For Putin-Zelensky Talks In Rare Diplomatic Move

By Niall Strange | The Hill

President Trump met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House on Monday as the search for an end to the three-and-a-half-year war intensifies.

Major European leaders also jetted in for the meeting. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni were all in attendance. So too were European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.

In a relief for all concerned, the meeting was vastly different from the late February contretemps in the Oval Office, in which Trump and Vice President Vance berated Zelensky at length.

Here are the other main takeaways.

A positive tone but few specifics

The mood music was positive Monday, but huge hurdles remain on the road to peace.

Trump was civil and solicitous toward Zelensky throughout the day, and he was also conspicuously affable to the European leaders, with whom he has had volatile relations.

Trump argued that “while difficult, peace is within reach.” He also held out the promise of an imminent trilateral meeting between Zelensky, Russian President Vladimir Putin and himself at which the knottiest issues of the conflict could be unpicked.

Zelensky, for his part, enthused about his “really good” conversation with Trump — a far cry from February’s debacle.

Rutte said he was “really excited” about the prospects for peace, while Starmer asserted there was a chance of “real progress toward a just and lasting outcome.”

Reaching that goal will be enormously difficult, however. Nothing that was said Monday changed the underlying contours of the conflict.

The Europeans lauded Trump for committing to provide security guarantees to Ukraine in the event of a settlement — but the pledge came with no specifics.

Starmer, Meloni and von der Leyen all talked about guarantees akin to NATO’s Article 5, which holds that member nations will come to the defense of any ally that is attacked. 

But what exactly is an “Article 5-like security guarantee,” as termed by von der Leyen? And how would Putin accept such a thing, given its practical resemblance to NATO membership for Ukraine, to which he is implacably opposed?

Conversely, Zelensky said he would be willing to discuss territorial changes at a trilateral meeting — but said nothing more on the topic, making it impossible to gauge how much pain he would be willing to take in that regard for peace.

The overall lack of concrete detail makes it hard to argue a settlement is any closer.

Europeans succeeded in shoring up Zelensky

The fact the European leaders trooped to Washington as reinforcements for Zelensky was one of the most notable elements of the day.

By and large, they succeeded in their two intertwined aims: making sure there was no repeat of the earlier Oval Office humiliation of the Ukrainian president and defending Kyiv’s interests more broadly.

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