ZELENSKY AND EUROPEANS MEET WITH TRUMP ON UKRAINE

Following on the successful August 15 Alaska summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, at which concrete steps toward ending the Ukraine war were discussed, Trump held a series of meetings today at the White House with acting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and with a gaggle of seven European leaders, who hastened to accompany their pet to Washington. At the conclusion of the meeting, Trump called Putin to brief him on the discussions.

In a Truth Social post following the meetings, Trump reported on the major outcomes of the day, which included “a meeting, at a location to be determined, between President Putin and President Zelensky. After that meeting takes place, we will have a Trilat, which would be the two Presidents, plus myself.” The Russian side has not yet been so definitive, as Russian Presidential Aide Yury Ushakov reported that in the phone call, the two Presidents discussed “the idea that the possibility should be studied of raising the level of the representatives from the Ukrainian and Russian sides, that is, of those representatives who take part in the [direct] talks.”

The other issue reported by Trump was that of security guarantees for Ukraine, which were the main, obsessive demand of the European leaders. Trump writes that those guarantees “would be provided by the various European Countries, with a coordination with the United States of America.”

While the outcome of the meetings generally seems positive, the devil may yet lie in the details: Exactly what kind of security guarantees were discussed? The British and others from the Coalition of the Willing have made quite clear that they want a ceasefire immediately, so that they can deploy British troops to Ukraine and otherwise begin to rebuild Ukraine’s military. Russia has made it quite clear that they would never accept NATO (officially or unofficially) in Ukraine, especially not with its long-range missile capability.

Otherwise, the European war party seems to have lost on its insistence for a ceasefire. When pressed on the issue at an Oval Office press availability earlier in the day, Trump was firm: “I don’t think you need a ceasefire. We can work a deal where we are working on a peace deal while they’re fighting. I’d like them to stop, but strategically that could be a disadvantage for one side or the other.”