Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he will meet U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday after a Russia-U.S. summit ended without an agreement to stop the fighting in Ukraine after 3 1/2 years.
In a reversal only few hours after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump said an overall peace agreement, and not a ceasefire, was the best way to end the war. That statement echoed Putin’s view that Russia is not interested in a temporary truce, and instead is seeking a long-term settlement that takes Moscow’s interests into account.
Trump and Ukraine’s European allies had been calling for a ceasefire ahead of any negotiations.
Zelenskyy, who was not invited to Alaska for the summit, said he held a “long and substantive” conversation with Trump early Saturday. He thanked him for an invitation to meet in person in Washington on Monday and said they would “discuss all of the details regarding ending the killing and the war.”
It will be Zelenskyy’s first visit to the U.S. since Trump berated him publicly for being “disrespectful” during an extraordinary Oval Office meeting on Feb. 28.
Trump, who also held calls with European leaders Saturday, confirmed the White House meeting and said that “if all works out, we will then schedule a meeting with President Putin.”
Trump rolled out the red carpet on Friday for Putin, who was in the U.S. for the first time in a decade and since the start of his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But he gave little concrete detail afterward of what was discussed. On Saturday, he posted on social media that it “went very well.”
Trump had warned ahead of the summit of “very severe consequences” for Russia if Putin doesn’t agree to end the war.
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Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
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