Trump meets the other side: Zelenskyy and EU leaders at Washington Summit

WASHINGTON D.C. – Mere days after sitting down with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, U.S. President Donald Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House in a high-stakes meeting that brought together a powerful roster of European leaders and NATO officials. 

Around the table sat an “EU charm offensive”: NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, French President Emmanuel Macron, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Finnish President Alexander Stubb and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. 

Meeting highlights

The summit opened with a one-to-one between Trump and Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, followed by a broader meeting with European leaders. Zelenskyy remained overall guarded, while Merz and Macron openly pressed for a ceasefire – a proposal  Trump dismissed, marking an abrupt shift from his position he had signaled heading into last week’s summit with Putin. Once central to peace talks, the idea of a ceasefire appeared to be sidelined. Zelenskyy, notably, stayed quiet on the matter.

Instead, the talks centered on two key themes: a Zelenskyy-Putin meeting – potentially held in Geneva – and “security guarantees” for Ukraine. Zelenskyy called it “a starting point for ending the war,” but neither he nor Trump offered clarity on what those guarantees could entail.

The trickier issue of territorial concessions remained marginal. Zelenskyy showed Trump a battlefield map of the current situation of Ukraine and Russian-held territories, pointedly contradicting the Oval Office’s own chart.

For now, the talks resembled much  less like peace negotiations and more like a high-stakes  poker match, with each side waiting to see who folds first.