It's possible Putin doesn't want deal: Trump

US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he hoped Russia's Vladimir Putin would move forward on ending the war in Ukraine but conceded that the Kremlin leader may not want to make a deal at all, adding this would create a "rough situation" for Putin.

- ANDREA SHALAL, TOM BALMFORTH & ANASTASIIA MALENKO

Leaders presented a relatively united front. Trump presided over a discussion with the US' traditional allies in which the participants emphasized common ground. Some differences broke through. Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany argued for a cease-fire to be put in place before further negotiations with Russia. And French President Emmanuel Macron suggested he was skeptical Putin was dealing in good faith. But there were no blowups of the sort that ended a previous visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the White House.

Trump spoke only in vague terms about security guarantees. Trump said the meetings were fruitful and that the leaders discussed "security guarantees for Ukraine, which guarantees would be provided by the various European countries, with a coordination with the US". The European leaders pressed Trump on providing a security guarantee similar to NATO's Article 5, meaning that an attack on Ukraine would be considered an attack on all NATO countries.

Trump engaged in some shuttle diplomacy with Putin. Trump continued to portray Russian President Vladimir Putin as genuinely interested in finding a way to end the war he had started. At one point, Trump broke off his session with the European leaders in the East Room of the White House to call the Russian leader. He later brought Zelenskyy and the European leaders into the Oval Office to describe his discussion. Russia, Ukraine will work on a Putin-Zelenskyy meeting. Trump said in a social media post that he had called Putin to begin arranging a meeting between Zelenskyy and the Russian leader. He said he would then seek to meet with both leaders in a trilateral session. But it was unclear if all the parties were on board.