The Trump-Zelenskyy Meeting

By Josh Rudolph, Managing Director and Senior Fellow, Strategic Democracy Initiatives

US-Ukraine relations have lived to fight another day even if the war in Ukraine was never going to be resolved by a rushed meeting—whether with Russian President Vladimir Putin or with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders. This is for one fundamental reason: Only Putin can stop the war, and he refuses to agree to an unconditional ceasefire. His demand for additional Ukrainian territory as a precondition for peace is unacceptable to Kyiv and Europe. Rewarding aggression would set a dangerous precedent, threatening borders across Europe and beyond, including Taiwan. If this week’s diplomatic flurry achieved anything, it was to clarify that Putin remains the obstacle to peace.

Given that a ceasefire, let alone a peace agreement, was unachievable over the past four days, a more realistic goal was preserving the cordial working relationship that Zelenskyy has maintained with Trump since their Vatican meeting in April, as opposed to their acrimonious Oval Office encounter in February. On that front, their most recent meeting was successful enough. Vice President JD Vance stayed quiet, and Zelenskyy—wearing a suit and delivering a personal letter from his wife to Melania Trump—was not browbeaten into conceding territory. The hardest issues were deferred to a possible future summit with Putin, Zelenskyy, and Trump, helping to avoid another public shouting match.

Participation in the meeting also sent a clear message that Europe will not stand by if Trump tries to push Ukraine into accepting Putin’s terms. The swift arrival of European leaders in Washington helped to show the US president that appeasing the Kremlin leader is not a route to a Nobel Peace Prize.

Instead, Trump’s path to a lasting foreign policy legacy lies in helping Ukraine win and join the Western alliance. He alone is positioned to make American military support for Ukraine politically sustainable in the United States. His recent openness to providing US security guarantees, including a NATO-like arrangement led by Europe, is a step in the right direction.

The latest Trump-Zelenskyy meeting may have not ended the war, but it avoided derailing US-Ukraine relations and served as a helpful reminder that Washington has been strong on the world stage because it has allies who fly across an ocean at the drop of a hat to help a beleaguered democracy stand up to bullies.

By Kristine Berzina, Senior Fellow, US Defense and Transatlantic Security

The United States is not signaling a retreat from the European stage. It is flirting with even greater entanglement on the European continent, whose leaders accompanied Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the White House on August 18. They were there to show that Kyiv’s security is European security, not an isolated or regional matter. And the issue with greatest traction and the reason for greatest hope is embedding Ukraine into a European security framework and a new transatlantic one.

One day prior to the White House gathering, US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff spoke of “Article-Five-like protection” for Ukraine. President Donald Trump echoed the potential for such provisions in his meetings with the Europeans.

Many Ukrainians and Europeans are skeptical of such promises. Ukraine has been left deprived of adequate protections through mechanisms such as the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, under which Ukraine gave up its nuclear capacity in exchange for inadequate security guarantees. The kind of security assistance Ukraine needs—from air support and boots on the ground to collective security arrangements—could most meaningfully and easily be provided through NATO itself. But even skeptics should be carefully watching developments in this area.

Trump has previously been wary of involving himself in the war in Ukraine, saying that the conflict is “not my war”. But if there is a ceasefire and a longer process to negotiate and establish peace, he would like to take credit for it. In his White House meeting with Zelenskyy, Trump made clear that peace should be “lasting”. Accordingly, the United States may be willing to take on a larger role in enforcing peace.

And so, seven months into his administration, despite fears of US withdrawal from Europe, Trump is toying with the idea of the new mechanisms for security partnership on the continent. This comes on top of his recommitment to NATO collective defense at the alliance’s June 2025 summit in The Hague.

These are indications of the president’s favorable position toward close transatlantic security ties. But it is still far from great since the strongest signal of support would involve bringing Ukraine into NATO. Trump, however, remains wary of any risk to American troops and would probably not put boots on the ground. He may instead move to help with logistics or air support. But unlike a few weeks ago, a more meaningful common effort for Ukrainian and European security is on the table. And a meaningful US role may not be impossible.

By David Salvo, Managing Director, Alliance for Securing Democracy

As details of the US administration’s position became clearer following the August 15 summit in Alaska, it became evident that—as feared—the face-to-face meeting with US President Donald Trump gave Russian President Vladimir Putin the advantage. Putin seemingly convinced Trump again that a ceasefire could not precede a comprehensive peace, and that a comprehensive peace should look mostly as Russia desires it, including, among other things, keeping Ukrainian land it took by force and removing sanctions and other isolating measures against Russia.

Now, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sitting beside Trump in the Oval Office, the optics in the room mirrored the dynamic between Trump and Putin in Anchorage. Warm pleasantries, scant details. Trump did not outline what role the United States would play in enforcing security guarantees for Ukraine, for example. Gallingly, he sat next to Zelenskyy and claimed that Putin wanted peace. Never mind that, in Alaska, Putin called Ukraine a “brotherly nation” for years, yet he had invaded and killed hundreds of thousands of his neighbors. Never mind that Putin failed to stipulate who exactly should guarantee Ukraine’s security. Never mind that, for the umpteenth time, Putin raised the need to eliminate the “root causes” of the war and reinstate a just balance of security in Europe—coded language for Russia’s desire to overthrow the current Ukrainian government and rewrite the Euro-Atlantic security architecture in Moscow’s favor.

While it is a positive that there were no discordant notes between Trump and Zelenskyy when they spoke to the press together from the White House three days after the Alaska summit, Trump did little to dispel the notion that the United States would support a comprehensive peace agreement largely on Russia’s terms. Putin is still calling the shots.