European Leaders Meet Donald Trump in Washington After Zelensky, With Mark Rutte and Ursula von der Leyen

European leaders are set to meet U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington after accompanying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, with the meeting scheduled for Monday 18 agosto and including NATO secretary general Mark Rutte and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.

The summit follows three days after Trump and Vladimir Putin met in Alaska, the first direct meeting between the two presidents since the start of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and the exclusion of Zelensky from the 15 agosto talks has fueled European fears of a bilateral U.S.-Russia track.

ABC News

The European position, coordinated through weekend contacts and a videoconference with Zelensky, is that any agreement must respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity in internationally recognized borders from 1991, excluding cession of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson that Russia has claimed since September 2022.

French President Emmanuel Macron is described as coordinating the European line and emphasizing a “pace forte e duratura” that does not legitimize territorial gains made by military force, while also stressing access to the Mar Nero through the ports of Odessa and Mykolaiv.

On the U.S. side, the Wired account says Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff reported that Putin accepted for the first time that the U.S. and Europe could offer Kyiv security guarantees similar to NATO’s Article 5, and it notes that Marco Rubio said both Russia and Ukraine would have to make concessions.

In parallel, Russian officials and Ukrainian leaders traded sharp messages over the negotiation process, with Dmitri Peskov saying Vladimir Putin sent a Christmas telegram to Donald Trump and adding that Zelensky’s remarks “sollevano dubbi sulla sua capacità di prendere decisioni adeguate per una risoluzione pacifica del conflitto”.

Peskov also called Zelensky’s stance “un atteggiamento maleducato e funesto”, while Maria Zakharova said the process with the U.S. is moving “lento ma costante” and that progress is hindered by “tentativi estremamente dannosi e perfino malevoli” from a group of states, “soprattutto dell’Europa occidentale”.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a letter published on Thursday night, directly urged Vladimir Putin to end the war and begin direct talks, writing, “Ukraine proposes ending this war through direct engagement between us — and you. I am proposing a meeting,”.

In the same reporting, the Kremlin said it had seen the letter and would review it later with Putin, while the Jerusalem Post recounts Putin’s position that Kyiv must compromise and that he saw no signs of that, so he was ready to fight on to victory.

The Jerusalem Post also quotes Putin’s demand that the war end only if Ukraine surrenders the rest of the eastern Donbas region, and it frames that demand as rejected by Zelensky as akin to capitulation.

As negotiations and messaging continue, the sources describe competing models for security guarantees and the conditions for any meeting, with Avvenire saying Zelensky argued a face-to-face with Putin would be possible only after an agreement on security guarantees against a possible new attack by Moscow.

Avvenire reports Zelensky wrote on Facebook that “There is not yet any signal from Moscow indicating a real willingness to start substantive negotiations. Pressure is needed. Severe sanctions, high tariffs,” and it adds that Zelensky opposes China’s role in a peace agreement.

On the Russian side, Avvenire says former president Dmitry Medvedev reiterated that “it has been explicitly stated, no NATO troops as peacekeepers; Russia will never accept them,” while Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov cautioned against agreements being “signed” during a leaders’ meeting because of “questions of legitimacy”.

The same Avvenire account says Russia’s firmest precondition is a veto over future efforts to defend Kyiv and that Lavrov stressed Moscow supports guarantees discussed in the Istanbul talks in 2022, including the role of UN Security Council permanent members such as China and Russia.

In parallel, Euronews reports U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff said Trump is weighing ideas such as a “free zone” for Ukraine that could help develop the country’s war-damaged industry, while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, “The discussion will continue on the issue of the Ukrainian settlement and on other related topics,” as Witkoff prepared to travel to Moscow.