Ukraine and its European allies have been buoyed by Donald Trump's promise at the White House of security guarantees for Kyiv to help end its war with Russia. But the president stressed on Tuesday that those would not not involve U.S. ground troops in a peacekeeping role.

When asked by a Fox News interviewer if the U.S. commitment wouldn't include "American boots on the ground," Trump said, "you have my assurance, and I'm president."

The statement was not a surprise, but Trump was vague when asked similar questions on Monday while in the Oval Office with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

"There'll be some form of security. It can't be NATO," said Trump. "We're willing to help them with things, especially, probably, if you could talk about by air."

Zelenskyy hailed Monday's extraordinary summit at the White House with the U.S. president and several European leaders as a "major step forward" in ending Europe's deadliest conflict in 80 years.

Zelenskyy was flanked by the leaders of allies including Germany, France and Britain at the summit, and his warm rapport with Trump contrasted sharply with a disastrous, abbreviated meeting in February at the White House, where he was berated by the U.S. president and Vice-President J.D. Vance.

The hope coming out of Monday's summit was that a trilateral meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin and Trump could be arranged in the near future. But beyond the optics, the path to peace remains deeply uncertain.

Flurry of talks continue

Ukraine's allies were holding a series of talks virtually and in person of the so-called "coalition of the willing" format. Zelenskyy said on Tuesday his officials were working on the content of the security guarantees.

French President Emmanuel Macron first publicly mentioned the possibility of European troops on the ground in a postwar Ukraine, but it received a muted reception at the time.

Defence Minister John Healey said last week that Britain was "ready to put U.K. boots on the ground" in the event of a ceasefire, ahead of last Friday's summit between Trump and Putin. Trump has since backed off on the need for a ceasefire to be implemented before a full-fledged peace deal is reached.

A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's government said on Tuesday that European leaders were weighing additional sanctions to ramp up pressure on Putin as part of a broader push to end the war in Ukraine.

Putin has warned that Russia will not tolerate troops from the NATO alliance on Ukrainian soil. He has also shown no sign of backing down on demands for territory, including land not currently under Russian military control, following the Alaska summit.

Trump said in his Fox News interview that he believed Putin was "tired of [the war]" but admitted it wasn't clear what the Russian leader would do next.

"We're going to find out about President Putin in the next couple of weeks … It's possible that he doesn't want to make a deal," Trump said, adding that Putin would face a "rough situation" if that were not the case.

Last week, the president warned the Russian leader of "severe consequences" if he wasn't sincere about peace talks. But so far in Trump's second administration, the U.S. has not applied additional sanctions on Moscow.

Postwar obligations being considered: Anand

Officials from countries not at the White House summit on Tuesday confirmed the need for continued support for Ukraine. 

"The leaders of Canada, Japan, Turkey, New Zealand, and European countries assessed the outcomes of the Alaska meeting very realistically," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on X after a virtual meeting. "We all confirmed the need for continued support for Ukraine in the war with Russia."

At a joint news conference in Finland with counterparts from the so-called Nordic Five, Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand said "there is an opportunity now to end Russia's illegal war in Ukraine."

"The work that the coalition of the willing is doing now is absolutely fundamental to adding the structure around the security guarantees and, in particular, the obligations that each country will adhere to," she said. 

It is unclear what form that could possibly take for Canada. Speaking to CBC News in March, the general in charge of overseas and domestic operations said that providing ground troops to a peacekeeping mission in Ukraine would be a challenge.​

No Kremlin commitment on Putin-Zelenskyy meeting

While the Washington talks provided a temporary sense of relief in Kyiv, there was no let-up in the fighting. Russia launched 270 drones and 10 missiles in an overnight attack on Ukraine, the Ukrainian air force said, the largest this month. The energy ministry said Russia had targeted energy facilities in the central Poltava region, home to Ukraine's only oil refinery, causing big fires.

Zelenskyy may be forced to make painful compromises to end the war, which began with Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

As well, Russia could drag out the war while trying to deflect U.S. pressure with a protracted peace negotiation, Neil Melvin, director of international security at the Royal United Services Institute think-tank, told Reuters. Melvin said leaders appear to be "tiptoeing" around Trump.

"I think behind this there's a struggle going on between Ukraine and the Europeans on one side, and the Russians on the other, not to present themselves to Trump as the obstacle to his peace process," Melvin said, adding that on security guarantees, "the problem is that what Trump has said is so vague it's very hard to take it seriously."

WATCH l Trump inconsistency a variable in days ahead, says UBC international relations prof: 

U.S. to arrange meeting between Putin, Zelenskyy: Trump | Hanomansing Tonight

U.S. President Donald Trump says he has begun arranging a meeting between Russian President Valdimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss details of a peace deal. This comes after multilateral talks between Trump, Zelenskyy and European leaders in Washington on Monday.

Russia has made no explicit commitment to a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that Moscow did not reject any formats, but that any meeting of national leaders "must be prepared with utmost thoroughness."

Putin is subject to an international arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, a court the U.S. doesn't recognize.

Macron had previously suggested Geneva as a possible location for any future meeting that would include Zelenskyy and Putin. 

Switzerland is a signatory to the ICC, but Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis told a media outlet there that if Putin was coming for the purposes of reaching a peace deal, it would receive the Russian leader.