Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is preparing for a pivotal White House meeting with President Donald Trump on Monday, as Washington considers possible security guarantees for Kyiv amid growing debate over whether territorial concessions to Russia could help end the war.
Zelenskyy will be accompanied by key European allies, a diplomatic show of solidarity highlighting Europe’s continued backing of Ukraine.
Speaking in Brussels over the weekend, Zelenskyy reflected on his last White House visit — which ended abruptly after a heated clash between Trump and Vice President JD Vance — and said he hopes Monday’s meeting “will be productive” rather than a repeat of February’s tense encounter, according to Fox News.
The meeting comes on the heels of Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage on Friday, where the U.S. president shifted from advocating for a ceasefire to calling for a broader peace agreement.
Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, told CNN that Putin agreed to allow the U.S. to provide Ukraine with “robust security guarantees.”
“We got to an agreement that the United States and other European nations could effectively offer Article 5-like language to cover a security guarantee,” he said, a reference to the critical NATO provision encompassing the military alliance’s mutual defense clause, known as Article 5.
The provision states that an attack on one member is considered an attack on all, which obligates allies to provide mutual defense. However, the proposed security guarantees for Ukraine will not be issued through NATO. Instead, they will come from select European partners as part of a potential peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine, as noted by Fox.
