Zelensky to Meet Trump in Washington After Putin Summit Ends Without Deal:Trump admitted “we didn’t get there” after the three-hour talks with Putin, though he insisted some progress had been made.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will meet Donald Trump in Washington on Monday, after a high-profile summit between the US president and Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Alaska ended without a breakthrough on ending the war in Ukraine.
Trump admitted “we didn’t get there” after the three-hour talks with Putin, though he insisted some progress had been made.
Putin, for his part, said he was “sincerely interested” in ending the war, but offered no details. Neither leader took questions from the media after their meeting.
Zelensky, who had been excluded from the Alaska summit, confirmed his trip to Washington following what he described as a “long and substantive” phone call with Trump aboard Air Force One. He said the two leaders spoke privately for about an hour before European counterparts joined the conversation.
Zelensky to Meet Trump in Washington After Putin Summit Ends Without Deal
The Ukrainian president’s statement contained little concrete detail but projected optimism, reflecting Kyiv’s effort to maintain stable ties with Trump after their rocky Oval Office meeting in February.
He stressed that future talks should involve all three leaders—Trump, Putin, and himself—and underlined the need for European participation “at every stage to ensure reliable security guarantees together with America.”
For many Ukrainians, the presence of European leaders is seen as a safeguard against the possibility of Trump being swayed by Putin. The Alaska summit highlighted these concerns, with Kyiv expressing frustration at being sidelined from the initial negotiations.
Adding to the sensitivity of the discussions was the issue of children abducted during the war.
According to US officials, Trump personally handed Putin a letter from First Lady Melania Trump, raising the plight of children in both Ukraine and Russia.
Melania, who was born in Slovenia, did not attend the summit, but her letter reportedly addressed the forced deportations.
Kyiv estimates that at least 19,500 Ukrainian children have been deported or forcibly displaced to Russia and Russian-occupied territories since Moscow’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
The International Criminal Court in 2023 issued arrest warrants for Putin and Russia’s children’s rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, over the alleged unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children.