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WASHINGTON: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was greeted by US President Donald Trump at the White House Monday ahead of high-stakes talks aimed at bridging big differences over a peace deal with Russia.
The leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Finland, as well as NATO chief Mark Rutte and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, also arrived for the talks, demonstrating support for Ukraine as Trump presses Kyiv to make concessions.
Air raid sirens sounded over Kyiv on Monday, AFP journalists heard, at the same time as the Europeans were arriving. Russian strikes overnight killed at least seven people.
Following his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska last week, Trump said Ukraine must give up Crimea and abandon its NATO ambitions — two of Moscow’s top demands.
Zelensky was scheduled for a one-on-one with Trump in the Oval Office, scene of an astonishing meeting in February February when the US president and his deputy JD Vance publicly berated the Ukrainian.
Trump will later meet separately with the European leaders.
Trump, 79, said it was a “big day at the White House” but appeared to be in a combative mood, churning out a string of social media posts.
“I know exactly what I’m doing,” the Republican said on his Truth Social network. “And I don’t need the advice of people who have been working on all of these conflicts for years, and were never able to do a thing to stop them.”
The European leaders held a preparatory meeting with the Ukrainian president in Washington on Monday morning, while Zelensky also met Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg.
Zelensky described the talks at the White House as “very serious” — and sought to flatter Trump ahead of the meeting, by echoing his trademark “peace through strength” language.
“President Trump has that strength. We have to do everything right to make peace happen,” he said.
Zelensky later called on social media for a “reliable and lasting peace for Ukraine and for the whole of Europe” and said they would discuss Western security guarantees for Ukraine.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told reporters on the plane to Washington: “We’ve got to make sure there is peace, that it is lasting peace, and that it is fair and that it is just.”
Reports had said Putin would be open to Western security guarantees for Ukraine in the event of any peace deal — but had ruled out Kyiv’s long-term ambition to join NATO.
Russia kept up its attacks on Ukraine ahead of the new talks, killing at least seven people, including two children, in dozens of drone and ballistic missile strikes overnight, Ukrainian officials said.
The Trump-Putin summit in Alaska failed to produce a ceasefire in the nearly three-and-a-half-year war that began with Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
After, Trump dropped his previous insistence on a ceasefire in favor of seeking a complete peace deal, meaning negotiations could proceed while the war goes on. He also alarmed Kyiv and European capitals by repeating a number of Russian talking points.
Trump said Sunday that Zelensky could end the war “almost immediately, if he wants to” but that, for Ukraine, there was “no getting back” Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, and “NO GOING INTO NATO.”
US media reports have said Putin would consider freezing much of the current frontline in Ukraine if Kyiv agreed to completely give up the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.
Trump envoy Steve Witkoff said Moscow had made “some concessions” on territory.
But such a move is widely viewed as unacceptable for Ukraine, which still holds much of the resource-rich area.
Yevgeniy Sosnovsky, a photographer from the captured Ukrainian city of Mariupol, said he “cannot understand” how Ukraine would cede land already under its control.
“Ukraine cannot give up any territories, not even those occupied by Russia,” he told AFP.
Kyiv and European leaders have warned against making political and territorial concessions to Russia, whose assault on Ukraine has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths.