LONDON/KYIV, Aug 18 — European leaders will join Volodymyr Zelenskiy to meet Donald Trump in Washington, they said yesterday, seeking to shore up Zelenskiy's position as the US president presses Ukraine to accept a quick peace deal to end Europe's deadliest war in 80 years.
Trump is leaning on Zelenskiy to strike an agreement after he met Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin in Alaska and emerged more aligned with Moscow on seeking a peace deal instead of a ceasefire first. Trump and Zelenskiy will meet today.
"If peace is not going to be possible here and this is just going to continue on as a war, people will continue to die by the thousands ... we may unfortunately wind up there, but we don't want to wind up there," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an interview with CBS's ‘Face the Nation’.
Trump yesterday promised "BIG PROGRESS ON RUSSIA" in a social media post without specifying what this might be.
Sources briefed on Moscow's thinking told Reuters the US and Russian leaders have discussed proposals for Russia to relinquish tiny pockets of occupied Ukraine in exchange for Kyiv ceding a swathe of fortified land in the east and freezing the front lines elsewhere.
Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia's envoy to international organisations in Vienna, said Russia agreed that any peace agreement on Ukraine must provide security guarantees to Kyiv.
Top Trump officials hinted that the fate of Ukraine's eastern Donbas region — which is already mostly under Russian control — was on the line, while some sort of defensive pact was also on the table.
"We were able to win the following concession, that the United States could offer Article 5-like protection," Trump envoy Steve Witkoff told CNN's ‘State of the Union’ yesterday, suggesting this would be in lieu of Ukraine seeking Nato membership. He said it was "the first time we had ever heard the Russians agree to that".
Article 5 of Nato’s founding treaty enshrines the principle of collective defense, in which an attack on any member is considered an attack on all.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer hosted a meeting of allies yesterday to bolster Zelenskiy's hand, hoping in particular to lock down robust security guarantees for Ukraine that would include a US role.
The Europeans are eager to help Zelenskiy avoid a repeat of his last Oval Office meeting in February when Trump and Vice-President JD Vance gave the Ukrainian leader a public dressing-down, accusing him of being ungrateful and disrespectful.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will also travel to Washington, as will Finnish President Alexander Stubb, who has played rounds of golf with Trump this year, and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, an admirer of many Trump policies.
Trump said on Friday Ukraine should make a deal to end the war because "Russia is a very big power, and they're not".
After the Alaska summit, Trump phoned Zelenskiy and told him the Kremlin chief had offered to freeze most front lines if Ukraine ceded all of Donetsk, a source familiar with the matter said. Zelenskiy rejected the demand.
