Major European leaders also jetted in for the meeting. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni were all in attendance. So too were European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.
In a relief for all concerned, the meeting was vastly different from the late February contretemps in the Oval Office, in which Trump and Vice President Vance berated Zelensky at length.
But even as the mood music was positive on Monday, huge hurdles remain on the road to peace.
Trump argued that “while difficult, peace is within reach.” He also held out the promise of an imminent trilateral meeting between Zelensky, Russian President Vladimir Putin and himself at which the knottiest issues of the conflict could be unpicked.
Zelensky, for his part, enthused about his “really good” conversation with Trump — a far cry from February’s debacle.
Reaching the goal of peace will be enormously difficult, however. Nothing that was said on Monday changed the underlying contours of the conflict.
The Europeans lauded Trump for committing to provide security guarantees to Ukraine in the event of a settlement — but the pledge came with no specifics.
Starmer, Meloni and von der Leyen all talked about guarantees akin to NATO’s Article 5, which holds that member nations will come to the defense of any ally that is attacked.
But what exactly is an “Article 5-like security guarantee,” as termed by von der Leyen? And how would Putin accept such a thing, given its practical resemblance to NATO membership for Ukraine, to which he is implacably opposed?
Conversely, Zelensky said he would be willing to discuss territorial changes at a trilateral meeting — but said nothing more on the topic, making it impossible to gauge how much pain he would be willing to take in that regard for peace.
The overall lack of concrete detail makes it hard to argue a settlement is any closer.
By and large, the fact that the European leaders trooped to Washington as reinforcements for Zelensky was one of the most notable elements of the day.
They succeeded in their two intertwined aims: making sure there was no repeat of the earlier Oval Office humiliation of the Ukrainian president and defending Kyiv’s interests more broadly.
The Europeans view Putin with the deepest suspicion, not only because of the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine but because they fear his expansionist instincts in general. They also regard him as fundamentally untrustworthy.
By contrast, Trump on Monday vouched more than once for the Russian leader’s interest in making peace.
To a skeptical Zelensky, the president insisted that “I think you’ll see that President Putin really would like to do something else. … I think you’re going to see some really positive moves.”
Toward the end of the public remarks with the European leaders, he again argued that “I think President Putin wants to find an answer, too.”
Time will tell whether those assertions are true.
Read the full report at TheHill.com.
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