Zelensky
will meet Trump Monday in Washington to discuss ‘all the details.’
After
President Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia ended inconclusive
peace talks in Alaska, Ukraine was left in a position it knows all too well. It
was scrambling to piece together what the two leaders had actually discussed,
deciphering what they may have agreed on and striving to avoid being sidelined
in peace talks.
A call a
few hours later from Mr. Trump filled in some of the gaps. President Volodymyr
Zelensky of Ukraine said the phone discussion, which included European leaders,
had been “long and substantive” and covered “the main points” of the American
leader’s talks with Mr. Putin. Mr. Zelensky added that he would visit Mr. Trump
in Washington on Monday “to discuss all of the details regarding ending the
killing and the war.”
But even
as Mr. Zelensky’s statement suggested a potential path toward a peace deal
after months of largely fruitless negotiations, a public statement by Mr. Trump
later on Saturday morning raised questions about whether such an opening would
be too heavily tilted toward Russia for Ukraine to accept.
Mr. Trump
called on social media for a direct peace agreement without securing a
cease-fire first, claiming that Mr. Zelensky and European leaders had agreed on
the point. His statement was a stark shift from the “principles” agreed upon
earlier in the week by Mr. Trump, Mr. Zelensky and his European allies, which
called for refusing to discuss peace terms until a cease-fire was in place.
Russia
has long pushed for a direct peace deal that would address a broad range of
issues and impose onerous demands on Ukraine, including territorial
concessions. Avoiding a cease-fire would allow Russia to continue pressing its
advantage on the battlefield in the meantime.
An
official briefed on the call between Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky said the
Ukrainian leader’s trip to Washington would aim to seek clarity from Mr. Trump.
Kyiv does not understand why the American president suddenly dropped the demand
that a cease-fire precede negotiations.
In a
statement, Mr. Zelensky seemed to tread carefully, trying not to openly
contradict Mr. Trump.
“We need
to achieve a real peace that will be lasting, not just another pause between
Russian invasions,” Mr. Zelensky said. But he added that “the killings must
stop as soon as possible, and the fire must cease both on the battlefield and
in the air, as well as against our port infrastructure,” suggesting that he was
still prioritizing a cease-fire.
In
statements of their own, European leaders made no mention of having agreed to
abandon their demand for a cease-fire. At the same time, the fact that the
statements did not include a demand for a cease-fire, as in previous remarks,
suggests at the very least an attempt not to antagonize Mr. Trump.
Mr.
Trump’s move to aim for a direct peace deal could bring to failure a week of
frantic diplomacy in which Kyiv, with European support, had lobbied the
American administration to insist that a cease-fire should come first and that
Ukraine should not be undercut in the negotiations.
Mr.
Trump’s social media post caused a feeling of whiplash among some Ukrainians,
who quickly reversed their early assessments of the Alaska summit.
Oleksandr
Merezhko, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the Ukrainian
Parliament, had initially expressed some relief, saying that “the situation
could have been worse” if Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin had struck a deal behind
Ukraine’s back.
He said
that a scenario in which “Trump and Putin started together to pressure Ukraine
into surrender” could not have been ruled out given Mr. Trump’s history of
deference to Mr. Putin.
But after
Mr. Trump’s post on Truth Social, Mr. Merezhko changed his view. “In fact,
Putin and Trump are starting to force us into surrender,” he said.
Mr. Trump
also proposed security guarantees for Ukraine inspired by the collective
defense agreement between NATO member countries, which states that any attack
on a member is an attack against all, according to Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s
prime minister.
Under
such guarantees, Ukraine’s NATO allies would be “ready to take action” if
Russia attacked again. But Mr. Merezhko and other Ukrainian allies said such a
formulation was too vague.
“Which
countries will agree to consider an attack against Ukraine as an attack against
themselves?” Mr. Merezhko asked. “I’d like to believe that we will find such
countries, but I’m not sure.”
Mr.
Trump, in an interview with Fox News after the meeting with Mr. Putin, also
addressed the idea of territorial swaps, saying they were among the points
“that we largely have agreed on.” Mr. Trump had said several times over the
past week that territorial concessions would be part of a peace agreement,
drawing pushback from Mr. Zelensky.
Mr.
Zelensky, however, has not entirely ruled out possible land swaps, telling
reporters this week that this is “a very complex issue that cannot be separated
from security guarantees for Ukraine.”
Mr.
Merezhko, who like many Ukrainian officials was left on tenterhooks by the
Alaska meeting, watched the post-meeting news conference live from Kyiv at
around 2 a.m. local time.
As both
Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin offered only vague statements, Mr. Merezhko said it had
become clear that no concrete deal had been reached.
He noted
that Mr. Putin had again said that any end to the fighting must address the
“root causes” of the war, which is Kremlin parlance for a range of issues that
include the existence of Ukraine as a fully independent and sovereign nation
aligned with the West.
“I think
it’s a failure because Putin was again talking about security concerns and used
his usual rhetoric,” Mr. Merezhko said as the news conference came to an end.
“I don’t see any changes.”
Vadym
Prystaiko, a former foreign affairs minister, said in a phone interview that
the summit’s brief duration — it lasted just a few hours and broke up ahead of
schedule — indicated limited progress toward peace.
He
recalled that during cease-fire negotiations in the first Ukraine-Russia war,
which started in 2014, he spent 16 hours in a room with Mr. Putin and Mr.
Zelensky’s predecessor, Petro Poroshenko.
The
cease-fire that was eventually agreed upon did not last, and fighting soon
resumed.
“They
didn’t manage to sit enough hours to actually go through all the stuff that is
needed to reach a deal,” Mr. Prystaiko said of Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin.
In Kyiv,
some emerged Saturday morning from a sleepless night following the news with
the sense that the war was likely to continue unabated. After the Alaska summit
wrapped up, the Ukrainian Air Force said that Russia had continued its assault
on Ukraine, launching 85 drones and one ballistic missile overnight. These
figures could not be independently verified.
Tetiana
Chamlai, a 66-year-old retiree in Kyiv, said the situation with the war would
change only if Ukraine was given more military support, to push Russian forces
back enough to force Moscow to the negotiating table. “That’s the only way
everything will stop,” she said. “I personally do not see any other way out.”
But Vice
President JD Vance made clear this past week that the United States was “done”
funding Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion. The Trump
administration, however, is fine with Ukraine buying American weapons from U.S.
companies, and Mr. Zelensky announced this week that Kyiv had secured $1.5
billion in European funding to purchase American arms.
How long
the Ukrainian Army can hold against relentless Russian assaults remains
uncertain. Moscow’s forces recently broke through a section of the Ukrainian
defenses in the eastern Donbas region, and although their advance has been
halted, the swift infiltration has underscored the strain on Ukraine’s
stretched lines.
Balazs
Jarabik, a former European Union diplomat in Kyiv who now works for R. Politik,
a political analysis firm, said that Russia’s upper hand on the battlefield had
most likely played a role in Mr. Trump’s agreeing to aim for a peace deal
rather than a cease-fire.
“Kyiv and
Europe must adapt to a new reality shaped by Washington and Moscow,” he said.
Olha
Konovalova contributed reporting.
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