Trump Pushes for Meeting Between Putin and Zelensky in Bid to End Ukraine War

Europeans Argue That Kyiv Should Not Yield Key Cities; Trump Designates Rubio to Draft Security Guarantees

- Michael R. Gordon, Bojan Pancevski & Annie Linskey

President Trump on Monday urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet face to face with him at a peace conference in a long-shot U.S.-led bid to end the 3-year-long war in Ukraine.

Zelensky quickly embraced the idea of a three-way summit. But after speaking with Putin, Trump said in a social-media post that Zelensky and Putin would have to hold one-on-one talks first. Only then might a meeting among the three leaders take place.

In a sign that the rapid developments may have left even participants confused, North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary-General Mark Rutte said in an interview on Fox News that Putin had in fact agreed to meet with Zelensky, despite the Kremlin's more equivocal public statement.

The back-and-forth suggested Trump's push to bring an end to the conflict in a three-way summit might turn into an even more drawn-out process while Russian forces pursue gains on the battlefield.

But it also highlighted the concerted effort by European officials to woo Trump into driving a hard bargain with Putin only three days after the two leaders held a friendly summit meeting in Alaska.

The day of diplomatic maneuvering began after Trump held talks with Zelensky at the White House followed by a broader meeting with top European leaders, who had proposed a so-called "reassurance force" that would deploy to Ukraine if a peace deal is reached to deter further attacks by Russia, which began the war by invading Ukraine in February 2022. But their efforts have had to reckon with Trump's long-standing reluctance to put U.S. troops in Ukraine to guarantee any peace agreement.

Trump said in a social-media post late Monday that the White House joined Zelensky in hopes of devising a common position to end the war.