'US would help with Ukraine's security'

President Donald Trump said Monday that the United States would help Europe in providing security for Ukraine as part of any deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, as he and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy began a hastily arranged White House meeting to discuss a path to peace.

- REUTERS

But he also suggested to reporters that he no longer believed reaching a ceasefire was a necessary prerequisite for striking a peace agreement, backing a position staked out by Russian President Vladimir Putin and opposed by Zelenskiy and most European leaders.

The two leaders took questions from the media in the Oval Office before meeting in private, six months after their last appearance there descended into disaster when Trump and Vice President JD Vance upbraided Zelenskiy in an extraordinary apublic dressing-down.

This time, Trump and Zelenskiy struck a far more convivial tone, despite the US president’s movement toward Russia in recent days following his summit in Alaska with Putin. And Zelenskiy was backed by the leaders of Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Finland, the European Union and NATO, who traveled to Washington to demonstrate solidarity with Ukraine and push for strong security guarantees for the country in any postwar settlement.

“When it comes to security, there’s going to be a lot of help,” Trump told reporters, adding that European countries would be involved, “They are a first line of defence because they're there, but we'll help them out.”