KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will meet Monday in Washington with U.S. President Donald Trump, who has shifted to saying an overall peace agreement — and not a ceasefire — is the next step in ending Ukraine’s three-and-a-half year war with Russia.
Trump’s abrupt reversal, aligning himself with a position held by Russian President Vladimir Putin, came in a social media post on Saturday, hours after they concluded a summit in Alaska that produced no agreement to halt the fighting.
Putin has long said that Moscow is not interested in a temporary truce, and instead is seeking a long-term settlement that takes the Kremlin’s interests into account.
After calls with Zelenskyy and European leaders, Trump posted that “it was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold up.”
In a statement after the Trump call, the European leaders did not address whether a peace deal was preferable to a ceasefire, saying they “welcomed President Trump’s efforts to stop the killing in Ukraine, end Russia’s war of aggression, and achieve just and lasting peace.”
Trump and Ukraine’s European allies had been calling for a ceasefire ahead of any negotiations.
Trump’s statement that a peace agreement should be reached before a ceasefire appears to indicate Trump’s thinking is “shifting towards Putin,” an approach that would allow Moscow to keep fighting while negotiating, said Nigel Gould-Davies, a senior fellow at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London.
Zelenskyy, who was not invited to Alaska for the summit, said he had a “long and substantive” conversation with Trump early Saturday. He said they would “discuss all of the details regarding ending the killing and the war” on Monday.
It will be Zelenskyy’s first visit to the U.S. since Trump berated him publicly for being “disrespectful” during an extraordinary Oval Office meeting on Feb. 28.
Trump, who also held calls with European leaders Saturday, confirmed the White House meeting and said that “if all works out, we will then schedule a meeting with President Putin.”
But Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, told Russian state television on Saturday that a possible three-way meeting “has not been touched upon yet” in U.S.-Russia discussions.
Zelenskyy wrote on X that he told Trump that “sanctions should be strengthened if there is no trilateral meeting or if Russia tries to evade an honest end to the war.“
Trump rolled out the red carpet on Friday for Putin, who was in the U.S. for the first time in a decade and since the start of his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But he gave little concrete detail afterward of what was discussed.
Trump said in Alaska that “there’s no deal until there’s a deal,” after Putin claimed the two leaders had hammered out an “understanding” on Ukraine and warned Europe not to “torpedo the nascent progress.”
During an interview with Fox News Channel before returning to Washington, Trump insisted the onus going forward might be on Zelenskyy “to get it done,” but said there would also be some involvement from European nations.
In their statement after speaking to Trump, major European leaders said they were ready to work with Trump and Zelenskyy toward “a trilateral summit with European support.”
But European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said “the harsh reality is that Russia has no intention of ending this war anytime soon,” noting that Moscow launched new attacks on Ukraine even as the delegations met.
“Putin continues to drag out negotiations and hopes he gets away with it. He left Anchorage without making any commitments to end the killing,” she said.
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