Ukraine’s president said he would fly to Washington on Monday to meet with Donald Trump after a telephone call with the US president in which he was briefed on the key points of the Alaska summit. The meeting will mark the first return to the White House for Volodymyr Zelenskyy since his infamous row with Trump in late February.
Zelenskyy said that his hour-long one-on-one conversation with Trump was “long and substantive”.
“President Trump informed [me] about his meeting with the Russian leader and the main points of their discussion,” Zelenskyy wrote, adding that Ukraine supported Trump’s proposal for a trilateral meeting between the two men and Vladimir Putin.
Zelenskyy did not spell out what the key points of discussion between Trump and Putin were, while the president’s chief communications adviser said that they “haven’t heard anything” about a possible air ceasefire before a leaders summit in response to a social media post from a journalist.
European leaders joined the call for a further half an hour, Zelenskyy added, emphasising that “it is important that Europeans are involved at every stage to ensure reliable security guarantees together with America”.
There were also “positive signals” from the US, Zelenskyy said, “regarding participation in guaranteeing Ukraine’s security”, echoing diplomatic language from last week in the run-up to the summit.
Previously, the US has declined to spell out how it might help prevent a future outbreak of fighting as part of a peace agreement, leading to speculation that Washington was looking to leave the safeguarding of Ukraine almost entirely to Europe.