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 on 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.
NATO’s 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 on 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 that 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.
In their remarks to the media, the Europeans talked about the degree to which they believe the war has enormous ramifications for other nations across the continent.
“We are on the side of Ukraine,” was the straightforward message delivered by Meloni, who is usually seen as more simpatico with Trump than counterparts such as Macron and Merz.
There is still plenty of European unease as to whether Trump will be too accommodating of Putin’s imperatives — but Monday quelled some of their worst fears.
Interim ceasefire is rare point of contention
A topic that was central to Trump’s meeting with Putin last week in Alaska reared its head again.
Prior to that Alaska meeting, Trump wanted Russia and Ukraine to quickly agree to a ceasefire, which would then set the stage for more comprehensive peace talks.
After Anchorage, he appeared to have shifted significantly in Putin’s direction, suggesting that it would be better to move to a full settlement without any halfway measures.
Putin’s fondness for that framework is based on the widely accepted reality that Russia has the upper hand on the battlefield. The Kremlin fears an interim ceasefire would disrupt their momentum and allow Ukraine to regroup.
On Monday, Merz was the most assertive about the need for a ceasefire right away.
The German chancellor said he found it impossible to imagine a next step on the path to peace without a ceasefire.
“Let’s try to put pressure on Russia,” Merz said.
Trump seemed ambivalent about the idea, at best.
That’s an important divide — and one that Putin might try to exploit.
Trump vouches for Putin’s desire to make peace
The Europeans view Putin with the deepest suspicion, not only because of the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine but because they fear his expansionist instincts in general. They also regard him as fundamentally untrustworthy.
By contrast, Trump on Monday vouched more than once for the Russian leader’s interest in making peace.
To a skeptical Zelensky, the president insisted that “I think you’ll see that President Putin really would like to do something else. … I think you’re going to see some really positive moves.”
Toward the end of the public remarks with the European leaders, he again argued that “I think President Putin wants to find an answer, too.”
Time will tell whether those assertions are true.
Even Trump admitted, in apparent reference to his campaign trail pledge to end the war on day one of his second term, “I thought this was going to be one of the easier ones [to solve]. It’s actually one of the most difficult — very complex.”
Huge stakes if a trilateral meeting happens
Monday’s events did at least create some momentum in the search for peace.
Trump wants to capitalize on that with a trilateral meeting soon.
Such a meeting could truly be a make-or-break moment.
If Putin, Zelensky and Trump get together in one room, there will be no way to avoid the most difficult issues that underpin the war.
The stakes would also be enormous for each participant — including Trump, who could either emerge as the consummate dealmaker, or end up looking naive in his belief that he could get a peace agreement.
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