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Volodymyr Zelensky is in Washington today to debrief with Donald Trump following the US President’s meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday. The purpose of today’s meeting at the White House will be to discuss the parameters of a potential peace deal in Ukraine. The last time Zelensky came to Washington was in February, when Trump and his Vice President J.D. Vance berated the wartime leader for not being sufficiently “grateful” for America’s support in the conflict with Russia. Once again, there is every possibility today’s summit will turn out as tense as it did six months ago.
Trump reportedly wants to discuss the territorial concessions demanded by Putin during Friday’s tête-à-tête. The Russian President is said to have pushed to be given full control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions during the closed-doors meeting between the two. While Luhansk is almost entirely under Russian occupation, Ukraine still holds about 30 percent of the Donetsk region. Zelensky’s position on land swaps has thawed somewhat over the past month – over the weekend, he said the front line’s “contact line is the best line for talking.” But he has repeatedly rejected handing over any Ukrainian territory not already occupied by the Kremlin’s troops.
Zelensky and his allies have a tall task ahead of them today
Instead, the Ukrainian President’s aim for today is to once again try and extract security guarantees from Trump for Ukraine in the event of a peace deal with Russia. While the US special envoy Steve Witkoff – who traveled with Trump to Alaska last week – has said the President had agreed to offering Zelensky “Article 5-like language” mirroring the NATO principle of treating an attack on one state as an attack on all, many questions remain over what such security guarantees would look like in practice.
Helping Zelensky make his case to Trump today – and hoping to protect him from the worst of his wrath – is an assortment of his largest European allies. They include UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian premier Giorgia Meloni, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, and NATO and EU chiefs Mark Rutte and Ursula von der Leyen. Many of this cast of characters have been present at various hastily arranged virtual and face-to-face meetings with Trump and Zelensky over the past week or so. In the face of Trump’s cozier than was comfortable overtures to Putin in Alaska, these meetings show how anxious Zelensky and his allies are about the likelihood of the American President forcing Ukraine into signing a deal with Russia it doesn’t want to.
Zelensky and his allies have a tall task ahead of them today. Taking to his social media platform Truth Social overnight, Trump once again put pressure on the Ukrainian President to accept the as yet unclear peace terms being cooked up between the American president and his Russian counterpart. He also ruled out a number of Ukrainian demands, including returning Crimea and “NO GOING INTO NATO.”
Trump’s aggressive haste to secure a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine has seen him increasingly bend towards giving in to Putin’s maximalist demands to end the conflict – rather than securing an agreement that would benefit and deliver justice for Ukraine. While Zelensky’s European allies were quick to recognize this, they have so far failed to produce sufficient carrots and sticks of their own with which to bring Trump onside. There is little to suggest any of them will succeed in producing any white rabbits today that will conclusively sway Trump away from bullying Zelensky into accepting the terms of a treaty hashed out with Putin behind Ukraine’s back. Europe’s armies and finances inspire similarly little confidence that, should Zelensky walk away from discussions, his allies have the means to sufficiently support his country in the conflict with Russia without America’s backing.
Tonight’s events will start at 12 p.m. ET, when Zelensky’s European allies are scheduled to arrive at the White House. This will be followed by a one-on-one between Trump and Zelensky in the Oval Office, before all parties are due to meet at 3 p.m. What, if any, press conferences will be held afterwards are currently unknown.
Ever confident in his own abilities to strike a deal, Trump has made it known that should things go well, he wants to bring Zelensky and Putin together in person within the next week. And yet even his own Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said yesterday that “we are not at the precipice of a peace agreement. We are not at the edge of one.” The path to peace for Ukraine – and a Nobel Peace Prize for Trump – appears longer than the American president may be bargaining for.
