By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will visit Washington DC on Monday where he will be received by his United States counterpart, Donald Trump to discuss an end to the war with Russia in Ukraine, which has lasted for over three years.
The meeting was announced hours after Trump’s talks with the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin in Alaska, which ended without a concrete deal.
In a post on his Truth Social platform after holding phone conversations with European Union and NATO leaders, Trump said the talks with Putin on Friday “went very well”.
“It was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold up,” Trump wrote.
Speaking to top officials in Moscow a day after the talks in Alaska, Putin said the talks had been “timely” and “very useful”, according to the Kremlin.
“We have not had direct negotiations of this kind at this level for a long time,” he said, adding: “We had the opportunity to calmly and in detail reiterate our position.”
“The conversation was very frank, substantive and, in my opinion, brings us closer to the necessary decisions,” Putin said.
On Saturday, the Ukrainian leader and his European allies, who have been seeking a ceasefire, welcomed the Trump-Putin talks but emphasised the need for a security guarantee for Kyiv.
Zelenskyy, who was publicly berated by Trump and his officials during his last Oval Office meeting in February, said, “I am grateful for the invitation.” The Ukrainian leader said he had a “long and substantive conversation with Trump” after the summit.
“In my conversation with President Trump, I said that sanctions should be tightened if there is no trilateral meeting or if Russia evades an honest end to the war,” the Ukrainian leader said.
He said Ukraine needs a real, long-lasting peace and not “just another pause” between Russian offensives.
“Security must be guaranteed reliably and in the long term, with the involvement of both Europe and the US,” he said on X after a call with the European leaders.
Zelenskyy stressed that territorial issues can only be decided with Ukraine.
In his first public comments after the Alaska talks, Zelenskyy said he supported Trump’s proposal for a meeting involving Ukraine, the US and Russia, adding that Kyiv is “ready for constructive cooperation”.
“Ukraine reaffirms its readiness to work with maximum effort to achieve peace,” the Ukrainian president posted on X.
But Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said on Russian state television on Saturday that a potential meeting involving Trump, Putin and Zelenskyy had not been raised during the US-Russia discussions.
