United States President Donald Trump has said he is organizing a meeting between Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his latest effort to end Moscow’s conflict in Ukraine.
This proposal came as Trump met with Zelenskyy and key European leaders, such as French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, at the White House to deliberate on ending the hostilities, which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Trump has “started arranging” the summit, which he discussed with Putin over the phone, and intends to have a three-way meeting afterwards with his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts.
He stated that this was a crucial initial step for a war that has been escalating for almost four years.
Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, are working together with Russia and Ukraine.
Separately, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte verified that Putin agreed to the face-to-face meeting, but did not disclose when and where it would happen.
Putin’s support for continuing direct discussions between the Russian and Ukrainian parties was confirmed by Moscow’s state-run TASS news agency’s quoting of presidential aide Yuri Ushakov, but Moscow has not confirmed it will meet with Zelenskyy yet.
This proposal for a first-ever meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy comes as the contentious issue of security guarantees for Ukraine emerged as the main focus during the talks at the White House. It’s still unclear what these guarantees would entail.
Trump, when asked if the US could send peacekeepers to Ukraine, mentioned that European nations would be the “first line of defense,” but that Washington would provide “a lot of help.”
Discussions focused on the security guarantees offered by European countries with US “coordination,” Zelenskyy said in a news conference that the specifics would be hammered out and formalized by Kyiv’s partners in the next one to two weeks.
Although Trump has ruled out Ukraine’s potential NATO membership, his special envoy, Witkoff, revealed that Putin could consider a security guarantee resembling NATO’s Article 5 collective defense pledge.
In remarks following Monday’s talks, Rutte described Washington’s commitment to be involved in ensuring Ukraine’s security as a “breakthrough,” but added that the details of this involvement would be discussed further.
The discussions did not cover the possibility of deploying US or European troops, said Rutte, affirming that the war must end definitively. Konstantin Sonin, a Russian professor and Putin critic, insisted that concrete security guarantees for Ukraine should include European troops on the ground.
Sonin also noted that Ukraine had failed to receive tangible support from guarantees that were written down, including during Moscow’s 2014 invasion and occupation of Crimea. The challenge, according to Sonin, is to convince Trump that without such guarantees, the conflict may resurface in the near future.
The concern remains unclear regarding which territories Ukraine would need to give up for a peace deal to be enacted. The repatriation of Russian-occupied Crimea is not part of any discussion, according to Trump, who indicated the agreement may require “some swapping, changes in land.”
Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/8/19/trump-proposes-putin-zelenskyy-summit-in-push-to-end-ukraine-war?traffic_source=rss
