According to a Ukrainian official familiar with the negotiations, Zelenskyy is eager to find out the details of potential security guarantees that could be included in an eventual deal.
“We will not recognize the occupation. The situation regarding compromises is broader, but we will not withdraw our troops,” said another Ukrainian official familiar with negotiations and granted anonymity to discuss them. “We will find out what details of possible security guarantees and whether Trump seriously pressured Putin into a trilateral format where everything can really be discussed.”
Trump and Putin said little following their meeting about the specifics of their discussion. According to the White House official, Putin didn’t agree to any specific security guarantees for Ukraine, but signaled that he “understands that security guarantees have to be on the table for the Ukrainians.”
Zelenskyy and Trump are scheduled to meet in the Oval Office at 1 p.m. Eastern time, the first part of which, as it was on his last visit here in February, will be open to a group of reporters and carried live on television.
A subsequent, expanded meeting will take place around 3 p.m. in the East Room with the European leaders, many of whom have worked hard to strengthen their personal relationships with Trump. That group includes British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Their presence as mediators could be significant, and makes clear just how different the dynamic with Trump is now nearly six months after the infamous Zelenskyy blowup. But for all the progress Ukraine’s embattled leader has made to repair his relationship with the president, and all the efforts by European allies to bring Trump more in line with their position on Ukraine, Trump’s comments in recent days offer a reminder that he remains, above all, eager to play dealmaker and highly susceptible to pressure from Putin.
Trump’s willingness to accept Putin’s idea that Ukraine cede more land in order to end the war, the second Ukrainian official said, reflected a misunderstanding about the battlefield dynamic, which is not as one-sided as the president seems to want to believe.
As such, the official was glum about prospects for a breakthrough on Monday: “We should expect another clusterfuck meeting in the Oval Office,” the person said.