US President Donald Trump temporarily interrupted his talks in Washington with European leaders, including Ukrainan President Volodymyr Zelensky, to call Russian President Vladimir Putin, he confirmed in a Truth Social post on Monday. The talks resumed after the call.
"At the conclusion of the meetings, I called President Putin, and began the arrangements for a meeting, at a location to be determined, between President Putin and President Zelenskyy," Trump wrote, adding "After that meeting takes place, we will have a Trilat, which would be the two Presidents, plus myself. Again, this was a very good, early step for a War that has been going on for almost four years."
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told reporters that the initial meeting between Putin and Zelensky will be "within the next two weeks."
A Kremlin aide said that Putin and Trump spoke for 40 minutes and discussed the idea of exploring the possibility of raising the level of Russian and Ukrainian representatives in the negotiations. The two leaders also agreed to continue close contact with each other on issues concerning Ukraine, as well as "other pressing issues," according to a report by Russian state news agency TASS.
Zelensky said after the meeting that security guarantees for Kyiv will likely be worked out within 10 days. He also said that territorial issues related to a potential peace agreement will be worked out between Ukraine and Russia.
US to send troops to Ukraine?
The leaders of Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Finland, and the European Union accompanied Zelensky on his Washington trip, as well as the secretary-general of NATO.
US Chair of the Joint Chiefs General Dan Caine and his staff have been working on potential security guarantees for Ukraine, according to a source familiar with the planning, cited by CNN.
While the sources did not provide details to CNN on what possibilities for US involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war are being discussed, the CNN report noted that Trump has declined to rule out sending US troops to the region.
Details of security guarantees for Ukraine could be ironed out within the next week or so, Finland's President Alexander Stubb told Finnish reporters in Washington following Monday's meeting.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on Monday that NATO membership for Ukraine was not under discussion, but that there was a discussion on "Article 5" type security guarantees for the country that Russia invaded in February 2022.
"The situation is this - that the US and some other countries have said that they are against NATO membership for Ukraine. The official NATO position ... is that there is an irreversible path for Ukraine into NATO," Rutte said during an interview on Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle" show.
"But what we are discussing here is not NATO membership, what we are discussing here is Article 5-type security guarantees for Ukraine, and what exactly they will entail will now be more specifically discussed."
Article 5 of NATO's founding treaty enshrines the principle of collective defense, in which an attack on any of its 32 members is considered an attack on all. Joining the Atlantic alliance is a strategic objective for Kyiv that is enshrined in the country's constitution.
Rutte's comments noted that a security guarantee of that scale could be offered to Ukraine in lieu of NATO membership, which Putin has ruled out.
Ukraine offers $100b. weapons deal to obtain US security guarantees
Ukraine will promise to buy $100 billion of US weapons financed by Europe as part of a deal to get guarantees from the United States for its security after a peace settlement with Russia, the Financial Times reported on Monday, citing a document seen by the newspaper.
The newspaper added that under the proposals, Ukraine and the US would also strike a $50 billion deal to produce drones with Ukrainian companies.
Earlier on Monday, Trump commented about the talks with Putin and Zelensky in a post on Truth Social.
"I’ve settled 6 Wars in 6 months, one of them a possible Nuclear disaster, and yet I have to read & listen to the Wall Street Journal, and many other who truly don’t have a clue, tell me everything that I am doing wrong on the Russia/Ukraine MESS, that is Sleepy Joe Biden’s war, not mine," Trump wrote.
"I’m only here to stop it, not to prosecute it any further. It would have NEVER happened if I was President," he claimed.
"I know exactly what I’m doing, and I don’t need the advice of people who have been working on all of these conflicts for years, and were never able to do a thing to stop them," he added.
"They are “STUPID” people, with no common sense, intelligence, or understanding, and they only make the current R/U disaster more difficult to FIX. Despite all of my lightweight and very jealous critics, I’ll get it done — I always do!!!" he concluded.