Zelenskyy braces for perilous talks with Trump in Washington on Monday
Published: 2025-08-16 22:37:09 | Views: 9
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy flies to Washington, D.C., on Monday under heavy U.S. pressure to agree to a swift end to Russia's war in his country but determined to defend Kyiv's interests — without sparking a second Oval Office bust-up with U.S. President Donald Trump.
Trump invited Zelenskyy to the White House after rolling out the red carpet for Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kyiv's arch foe, at a summit in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday that shocked many in Ukraine, where hundreds of thousands have died since Russia's February 2022 invasion.
The Alaska talks failed to produce the ceasefire that Trump sought, and the U.S. leader said on Saturday that he now wanted a full-fledged peace deal and that Kyiv should accept because "Russia is a very big power, and they're not."
The blunt rhetoric throws the weight of expectation squarely back onto Zelenskyy, putting him in a potentially perilous position as he returns to Washington for the first time since his talks with Trump in the Oval Office spiralled into acrimony in February.
The U.S. president upbraided Zelenskyy in front of world media at the time, saying Ukraine's leader did not "hold the cards" in negotiations and that what he described as Kyiv's intransigence risked triggering World War III.
Trump's pursuit of a quick deal now comes despite intense diplomacy by European allies and Ukraine to convince the U.S. president that a ceasefire should come first and not once a settlement is reached — as sought by the Kremlin.
The New York Times, citing two senior European officials, reported on Saturday that European leaders were also invited to attend Monday's meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy. Reuters could not immediately confirm the report.
Trump briefed Zelenskyy on his talks with Putin during a call on Saturday that lasted more than an hour and a half, the Ukrainian leader said. They were joined after an hour by European and NATO officials, he added.
"The impression is he wants a fast deal at any price," a source familiar with the conversation told Reuters.
The source said Trump sought to convince Zelenskyy to agree to the idea of a deal in which he would withdraw troops from the partially occupied eastern Donetsk region that Russian troops have been trying to capture for years.
Zelenskyy replied that was not possible, the source said.
Kyiv has publicly dismissed the idea of withdrawing from internationally recognized Ukrainian land that it controls as part of any deal. Donetsk region, Ukrainian officials say, serves as a fortress holding back Russian advances deeper into the country.
My statement following the Alaska Summit: <a href="https://t.co/Fs6khkgtRN">pic.twitter.com/Fs6khkgtRN</a>
—@MarkJCarneyOleksandr Merezhko, head of the Ukrainian parliament's foreign affairs committee, told Reuters by phone that Trump's emphasis on a deal rather than a ceasefire carried great risks for Ukraine.
"In Putin's view, a peace agreement means several dangerous things — Ukraine not joining NATO, his absurd demands for denazification and demilitarization, the Russian language and the Russian church," he said.
Any such deal could be politically explosive inside Ukraine, Merezhko said, adding he was worried that Putin's international isolation had ended.
Security guarantees
Avoiding a repeat of the Oval Office acrimony from February is critical for Zelenskyy to preserve Ukraine's relationship with the United States, which still provides military assistance and shares intelligence.
For Ukraine, robust security guarantees to prevent any future Russian invasion lie at the foundation of any serious peace settlement.
Two sources familiar with the matter said that during their call on Saturday, Trump and the European leaders discussed potential security guarantees for Ukraine that would be outside the North Atlantic Treaty Organization but similar to the alliance's Article 5.
NATO, which Kyiv seeks to join — though Trump has made clear that will not happen soon — regards any attack launched on one of its 32 members as an attack on all under its Article 5 clause.
One of the two sources, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said European leaders were seeking clarity on what kind of U.S. role this guarantee would involve but that there were no details yet.
In an apparent effort to bolster Zelenskyy's hand before he meets Trump, France, the U.K. and Germany will co-host a video call on Sunday afternoon of "coalition of the willing" nations that could, in one way or another, help monitor and uphold any deal to end fighting, French President Emmanuel Macron's office said.
Zelenskyy has repeatedly said a trilateral meeting with the Russian and U.S. leaders is crucial to finding a way to end the full-scale war launched by Russia three and a half years ago.
Trump this week voiced the idea of such a meeting, saying it could happen if his bilateral talks in Alaska with Putin were successful.
"Ukraine emphasizes that key issues can be discussed at the level of leaders, and a trilateral format is suitable for this," Zelenskyy wrote on social media on Saturday.
Trump puts onus on Zelenskyy and Europe
Trump said in Alaska that "there's no deal until there's a deal," after Putin claimed the two leaders had hammered out an "understanding" on Ukraine and warned Europe not to "torpedo the nascent progress."
During an interview with Fox News Channel before returning to Washington, Trump insisted the onus going forward might be on Zelenskyy "to get it done," but said there would also be some involvement from European nations.
In their statement after speaking to Trump, major European leaders said they were ready to work with Trump and Zelenskyy toward "a trilateral summit with European support."
The statement from French, German, Italian, British, Finnish, Polish and European Union leaders said that "Ukraine must have ironclad security guarantees," and it welcomed U.S. readiness to provide them. "It will be up to Ukraine to make decisions on its territory," they said. "International borders must not be changed by force."
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said "the harsh reality is that Russia has no intention of ending this war any time soon," noting that Moscow launched new attacks on Ukraine even as the delegations met.
"Putin continues to drag out negotiations and hopes he gets away with it. He left Anchorage without making any commitments to end the killing," she said.
Ukrainian and Russian forces are fighting along a 1,000-kilometre front line. Since spring, Russian troops have accelerated their gains, capturing the most territory since the opening stages of the war.
Putin 'has broken out of international isolation'
Russian officials and media struck a largely positive tone after Friday's summit, with some describing it as a symbolic end to Putin's isolation in the West.
Former President Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia's Security Council, praised the summit as a breakthrough in restoring high-level dialogue between Moscow and Washington, describing the talks as "calm, without ultimatums and threats."
"Vladimir Putin came to the Alaska summit with the principal goal of stalling any pressure on Russia to end the war," said Neil Melvin, director of international security at the London-based Royal United Services Institute. "He will consider the summit outcome as mission accomplished."
Putin has "broken out of international isolation" and back on the world stage as one of two global leaders, and "wasn't in the least challenged" by Trump, who also ignored an arrest warrant issued for Putin by the International Criminal Court, said Laurie Bristow, who was British ambassador to Russia from 2016 to 2020.
"Unless Mr. Putin is absolutely convinced that he cannot win militarily, the fighting is not going to stop," Bristow told The Associated Press. "That's the big takeaway from the Anchorage summit."
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