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Trump’s NATO Ukraine talks
U.S. President Donald Trump plans to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa on Wednesday while attending the NATO summit in Turkey, the White House said.
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly confirmed the meetings in a call with reporters while previewing the summit in Ankara, where Trump also plans to meet Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday.
The meetings come as Kyiv tries to refocus Trump’s attention on the conflict with Moscow, with Russia’s war in Ukraine now in its fifth year.
Both Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin held phone calls with Trump on Saturday, congratulating him on the July Fourth commemoration of the 250th anniversary of American independence.
Zelensky said there is “a real prospect of ending this war,” and that conversation would continue at the NATO summit in Ankara.
Calls, demands, and claims
Kremlin foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said that in Putin’s call with Trump, the Republican president reaffirmed his “readiness to help achieve a quick cessation of hostilities and search for peaceful solutions to settle the crisis” in Ukraine.
On the Ukrainian side, Zelensky said on X that he had spoken to Trump on the Fourth of July holiday and called for “American resolve” to help end the more than four-year-old conflict with Russia.
The talks were also framed around stalled negotiations, with Moscow demanding the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from Ukraine's Donetsk region, a demand Kyiv rejects.
RTE.ie reported that heads of state and delegations from 32 countries, including Trump, are expected to arrive in Ankara starting Tuesday for the summit.
Le Monde with AFP said negotiations are at an impasse, with Moscow demanding the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the entire Donetsk region – a demand Kyiv rejects.
What’s at stake next
Ahead of the NATO summit, the Kremlin described Trump’s approach as mediation aimed at ending the war, with Yuri Ushakov saying Trump offered mediation during a phone conversation with Vladimir Putin that lasted about 90 minutes.
Ushakov added that American envoys Steve Weitkov and Jared Kushner would continue their mediation efforts and were prepared to make another visit to Moscow.
On the ground, the same source said Russian military commanders told Putin that Russian forces had seized the strategically important city of Kostyantynivka in Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, while Zelenskiy and the Ukrainian General Staff denied this claim.
Ukraine said that in the last 48 hours it attacked 16 power-generation substations in the Crimea peninsula and in other areas under Russian control, worsening the energy crisis.
The NATO summit hosted by Ankara is set for July 7 and 8, with the North Atlantic Council meeting on July 8 chaired by President Erdogan, according to Burhanuddin Doran.
