For Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Monday began with a diplomatic whirlwind. It ended with a great sigh of relief.
Hours of meetings in Washington — Zelenskyy with President Donald Trump, Trump with a coterie of Europe’s most powerful leaders, all of the above together in the Oval Office — culminated in a “breakthrough,” in the words of NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte: Trump expressed a willingness to participate in security guarantees for Ukraine.
On the international stage, that alone amounts to a new dawn not only for the relationship between the U.S. and Ukraine, but also Zelenskyy’s relationship with Trump, and America’s with some of its closest transatlantic allies.
On the home front, it could be a bit more complicated. While there are no specifics yet on what exactly U.S. security guarantees might look like for Ukraine — Zelenskyy suggested those would be ironed out within 10 days — even the vague allusion to them hints that MAGA may be careening toward another foreign policy divide.
In public, there are a few topline takeaways from yesterday. The biggest are the security guarantees, and the reality that Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin are hurtling toward a bilateral meeting; German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that summit could happen within the next two weeks. After that, Trump intends to join Zelenskyy and Putin for a trilateral meeting with the aim of ending Russia’s war on Ukraine, he announced on social media. “[T]he optimism of your president is to be taken seriously,” French President Emmanuel Macron told NBC News. “So if he considers he can get a deal done, this is great news, and we have to do whatever we can to have a great deal.”
In private, there are more interesting details. Here’s what Trump world insiders are talking in private about yesterday's cascade of diplomatic meetings — and how it perhaps recontextualizes parts of last Friday’s Trump-Putin summit in Alaska.
1. The Trump-Zelenskyy reset is real. From the moment Trump complimented Zelenskyy on his suit — all the way through to Vice President JD Vance’s more easy rapport with the Ukrainian president and the many “thanks” Zelenskyy offered — it was a totally different mood than the disastrous February meeting. “The vibe between the president and Zelenskyy was terrific,” a senior administration official told POLITICO. “What happened in that first Oval meeting is well gone.” This official described the ensuing talks as “really productive.”
2. The Europeans proved difference-makers. The goal of convening the Europeans was “to say ‘We’re in charge; you’ll sign on to anything we say,’” the senior administration official told POLITICO. And the White House was mostly pleased by what they saw. “The Europeans were positive today, but they are tedious,” the official said. “But they were really good. And if you just were an observer of the two hours today, you'd say, ‘Wow, that’s like a family — a happy family.’ But they all have their own little thing that they want to have happen. And it really is more of a European war than an American war, but none of them has stepped up.” Was it unwieldy to have them all in a meeting together? Yes. “They're heads of state,” the official continued. “They’re used to being in charge. And when you put seven of them in one room, you get what you would think. But it wasn't bad.”
3. Trump offered to go straight to a trilateral meeting. The senior administration official told POLITICO that when Trump called Putin to offer his presence at a meeting between Zelenskyy and the Russian leader, Putin said, “You don’t have to come. I want to see him one on one.” Trump’s team “started working on that,” the official said. “Steve Witkoff has the assignment to get it figured [out].”
4. Alaska paved the way for the “security guarantees” discussion. If there was any concern within the administration about how the Putin meeting in Anchorage went down, Monday all but evaporated it. “After Alaska, we were excited that Putin was at least talking and there were signs we could negotiate,” a second senior administration official told POLITICO. One of those signs came on the topic of security guarantees: Putin was “engaging on a conversation about security guarantees instead of, ‘Nyet, nyet, nyet,” this second official said. “If Alaska was not successful and Putin didn’t give us a little bit of an opening, we wouldn’t have [had] the Europeans at the White House.” Of Putin: “He’ll drive a hard bargain, but that opening is huge.”
5. Those security guarantees could be a sticking point internationally. It remains unclear just how big a commitment the U.S. has on the line here. “We haven’t even started [that discussion] other than a commitment,” the first senior administration official told POLITICO. “The question is, ‘Who participates to what percentage?’ But the president did commit that we would be a part of it. No specifics. And then he said he would also help it get organized. And he alone could sell that to Putin. I don't think Putin would pay any attention to the others, and I’m not sure the others would do it without him.”
6. And those same guarantees could be a problem for Trump domestically. Does the administration have a red line when it comes to committing U.S. troops to keep a peace in Ukraine? “I don’t think there's a red line,” the first senior official told POLITICO. “So I think it just kind of remains to be seen. [President Trump] would like the Europeans to step up. But I think if the last piece of the puzzle was for a period of time to be a part of a peacekeeping force, I think he would do it.”
Meanwhile, as European leaders arrived at the White House, MAGA coalition minder Steve Bannon took to his influential “War Room” podcast to warn about the U.S. security guarantees in Ukraine.
“I'm just lost how the United States offering an Article 5 commitment for a security guarantee to Ukraine is a win for the United States,” Bannon said on his show Monday morning.
“President Trump has done more than enough to bring the parties together,” Bannon told POLITICO late Monday night. “Once again, this is a European problem; we have all the leverage here. If we don't fund this, it stops happening. The only way this goes forward — the only way this continues every day — is American money and American arms. The Europeans don’t have enough either military hardware and/or financial wherewithal.”
Bannon said he hopes Trump “eventually stops listening to the [Sens.] Lindsey Grahams and Tom Cottons and the Mitch McConnells, and realizes that there can’t be any guarantee here from the United States, because that’s going to inextricably link us to this conflict.”
In a Truth Social post on Monday about the next steps, Trump said “Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, are coordinating with Russia and Ukraine.”
That callout was striking. “That’s the first time JD and Marco have been dragged into a big foreign policy issue together,” the second senior administration official told POLITICO. “If it’s JD and Marco and Witkoff, who gets the credit and who gets the blame if it fails? This could be the first test of 2028.”
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