Trump claims he is setting up meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin
Donald Trump has taken to social media to say arrangements are under way for a future meeting between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin and, later, a trilateral meeting between the two along with Trump.
The US president posted on his Truth Social platform that today’s meeting in Washington was “a very good, early step for a War that has been going on for almost four years”.
He said vice-president JD Vance, secretary of state Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff were “coordinating with Russia and Ukraine”.
Trump said:
Everyone is very happy about the possibility of PEACE for Russia/Ukraine. 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. After that meeting takes place, we will have a Trilat, which would be the two Presidents, plus myself.
Putin has previously resisted a one-on-one meeting with Zelenskyy.
Here’s a fresh video of the proceedings in the White House as Donald Trump ruled out a ceasefire in Ukraine while Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his European allies visited the US president.
Trump said he had called Vladimir Putin and begun arrangements for a meeting between the Russian president and Ukrainian leader, also saying that “all of us would obviously prefer an immediate ceasefire … as of this moment it’s not happening”.
However, the leaders of France and Germany refused to accept defeat on the issue, with German chancellor Friedrich Merz insisting “we would all like to see a ceasefire” and he could not imagine the next meeting taking place without one, and French president Emmanuel Macron also backing the idea of a truce as a “necessity”.
Here’s the video wrap of the Washington meeting:
EU leaders present united front for ceasefire in Ukraine and ‘pressure on Russia’ – video
Ukraine will promise to buy $100bn of US weapons financed by Europe as part of a deal to get guarantees from the US for its security if there is a peace settlement with Russia, according to reports.
Warren Murray writes in our Ukraine war briefing that the Financial Times cited a document seen by its reporter, while the Washington Post said it had also confirmed the proposal.
The FT added that Ukraine and the US would also strike a $50bn deal to produce drones with Ukrainian companies.
The drone news may be repeat of recent similar announcements.
You can read the full Ukraine briefing here:
Returning now to the Finnish president’s comments after the White House meeting, Alexander Stubb said his Russian counterpart was not trustworthy.
“Putin is rarely to be trusted,” Stubb told Finnish reporters, cited by Reuters. “So now it remains to be seen whether he has the courage to come to this type of meeting.
Does he have the courage to come to a trilateral meeting, or is he once again playing for time?
Russian President Vladimir Putin. Photograph: Vyacheslav Prokofyev/AP
French president Emmanuel Macron has called for stepping up sanctions against Russia if Vladimir Putin does not move forward on peace with Ukraine.
“President Trump believes we can get an agreement and believes that President Putin also wants a peace accord,” Macron told reporters after the talks at the White House.
“But if at the end this process is met by refusal, we are also ready to say that we need to increase sanctions.”
Macron pointed to recent secondary sanctions imposed by the Trump administration on India, a major buyer of Russian energy as western nations cut back due to sanctions over Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Macron said the secondary sanctions on India had “had a lot of effects”, Agence France-Presse reports.
French president Emmanuel Macron speaks with the media in Washington DC after the White House meeting. Photograph: Yves Herman/EPA
Over the weekend, Trump publicly again pressured Ukraine to concede territory, siding with Putin and not Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has insisted on defending all territory that Russia has taken by force.
Asked by reporters if Trump had said that concessions were necessary before any US security guarantees to Ukraine, Macron said: “No, that wasn’t discussed at all. We’re well away from that.”
He said he hoped Russia and Ukraine would resume contact “in the coming days” with a potential three-way summit involving Trump, Putin and Zelenskyy “in two to three weeks”.
As Donald Trump touted his bona fides as the so-called “peacemaker-in-chief” during talks over Ukraine at the White House, he made two big claims: that he wants peace deals instead of ceasefires, and that he has ended six wars since he became president.
But as Andrew Roth explains, in Trump’s haste to hammer out a peace deal in Ukraine, he is playing fast and loose with the truth.
Trump and his administration have claimed to have helped settle the conflicts between Israel and Iran, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, Cambodia and Thailand, India and Pakistan, Serbia and Kosovo, and Egypt and Ethiopia …
On the subject of ceasefires, by Trump’s own admission, he has often been seeking them in these conflicts. Now, he has sought to rewrite the record, piling pressure on Ukraine.
Trump’s declaration that he was not seeking a ceasefire in Ukraine came after last week’s meeting Vladimir Putin in Alaska, where the Russian president initially demanded that Ukraine cede control over territory in the country’s southeast before negotiating a ceasefire.
The question is crucial to the sequencing of an eventual peace in Ukraine.
You can read Roth’s full explainer here:
French president Emmanuel Macron says any future peace deal between Russia and Ukraine cannot restrict the size of Kyiv’s military.
Macron told reporters that Donald Trump and European leaders had agreed on the need for a “robust Ukrainian army that can resist any attempted attack” and that it would not have “any limitation in number or capacity of arms”.
Macron also said on Monday the White House talks did not discuss Ukrainian territorial concessions, AFP is reporting.
This photograph shows a general view of a damaged building and a church behing it in Kharkiv, on August 18, 2025. Photograph: Ivan Samoilov/AFP/Getty Images
Zelenskyy says Ukraine security guarantees likely within 10 days
Volodymyr Zelenskyy is saying security guarantees for Kyiv will likely be worked out within the next 10 days.
“Security guarantees will probably be ‘unpacked’ by our partners, and more and more details will emerge,” the Ukrainian president said at a broadcast press briefing after his meetings in Washington DC.
“All of this will somehow be formalised on paper within the next week to 10 days,” he said on Tuesday, quoted by Reuters.
Zelenskyy also said territorial issues related to a potential peace agreement would be worked out between Ukraine and Russia.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaking near the White House after the meetings with Donald Trump and European leaders. Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP
German chancellor Friedrich Merz says Ukraine should not be forced to surrender its Donbas region to Russia in talks, likening it to the US giving up a state.
“The Russian demand that Kyiv give up the free parts of Donbas corresponds, to put it bluntly, to a proposal for the United States to have to give up Florida,” Merz told reporters after the White House talks on Monday.
Merz said Putin and Trump – in their call in the midst of the talks – “agreed that there would be a meeting between the Russian president and the Ukrainian president within the next two weeks”.
Merz, quoted by Agence France-Presse, also said Trump voiced a readiness to offer security guarantees to Ukraine, even though the US president put the onus on Europeans.
German chancellor Friedrich Merz at the White House meeting on Monday. Photograph: Aaron Schwartz/PA
The German chancellor said:
The bottom line is that the United States of America is prepared to provide security guarantees and to coordinate this with the Europeans. There will be appropriate security guarantees for Ukraine in the event of a peace agreement.
Trump has repeatedly ruled out Ukraine entering Nato, siding with Putin who has called the step a provocation.
Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov has said Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump only discussed the “idea” of direct Russia-Ukraine talks in Monday’s phone call.
Russia’s Tass news agency quoted the aide as saying Putin told Trump that he was open to the “idea” of direct talks with Ukraine.
Tass, cited by Agence France-Presse, quoted Ushakov as saying:
In the course of the further phone conversation, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump expressed support for the continuation of direct negotiations between the delegations of Russia and Ukraine.
In this regard, in particular, the idea was discussed that it would be necessary to study the possibility of raising the level of representatives of the Ukrainian and Russian sides, that is, those representatives who participate in the aforementioned direct negotiations.
Zelenskyy says he is ready to meet Putin – report
Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he is ready for a bilateral meeting with Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine, Agence France-Presse is reporting.
Vladimir Putin told Donald Trump he was ready to meet Volodymyr Zelenskyy within a fortnight, German chancellor Friedrich Merz has told reporters.
Merz said that Putin and Trump – in their phone call in the midst of the White House talks – “agreed that there would be a meeting between the Russian president and the Ukrainian president within the next two weeks”, Agence France-Presse reports.
This combination of pictures created on August 18, 2025 shows US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington, DC, on August 18, 2025 and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, on August 15, 2025. Photograph: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images
