ZELENSKY SURVIVES ANOTHER EPISODE OF THE TRUMP SHOW / THE ECONOMIST

A cordial meeting

Zelensky survives another episode of the Trump show

America hints at providing security guarantees for Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Donald Trump both smiling during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, USA./ Photograph: Getty Images

“ICAN’T BELIEVE it,” said Donald Trump, America’s president, as he greeted Volodymyr Zelensky, his Ukrainian counterpart, outside the White House on August 18th. 

“I love it.” 

Mr Trump was referring to Mr Zelensky’s decision to bow to American pressure and wear a suit-like garment to the meeting, an issue that had contributed to an acrimonious blow-up in the Oval Office in February. 

It was a promising start to a pivotal summit, with a clutch of European leaders waiting in the wings to join the talks.

The meeting in Washington was the result of another summit, between Mr Trump and Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, in Alaska last week. 

That meeting yielded what Mr Putin vaguely called “understandings”, with America giving up its demand for an upfront ceasefire in favour of a broader peace deal that would reportedly require Ukraine to hand over unoccupied territory in exchange for Russian promises to stop the war.

An on-camera discussion between Mr Trump and Mr Zelensky in the Oval Office shed little light on the details of the deal on the table. 

But the mood between the two men was surprisingly positive. 

Mr Zelensky handed Mr Trump a letter from his wife, Olena Zelenska, to Melania Trump, the first lady, who last week had written to Mr Putin about the plight of children caught up in the war. 

Mr Zelensky traded jokes with the American journalist who had provoked the row over his outfit in February and teased Mr Trump that he, too, might like to suspend national elections. 

It was a far cry from the last meeting between the two men, which had ended with Mr Zelensky being booted out of the White House. 

The conversation was “very good”, said Mr Zelensky, this time, as Mr Trump nodded in assent.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pose for a picture with European leaders following a meeting in the Oval Office at the White House, Washington DC, USA. / Photograph: Getty Images

On substantive matters, both men deflected the hard questions, at least in public. 

Mr Trump said that he had indirectly spoken to Mr Putin prior to the meeting and that he would call the Russian president afterwards to arrange a trilateral meeting—one that Mr Zelensky said he would welcome. 

Mr Trump explained why he had changed his mind on the question of a ceasefire, which he said was no longer needed: it could “disadvantage” one side, he suggested. 

“We’re not talking about a two-year peace, and then we end up in this mess again. 

We’re going to make sure that everything’s good.” 

In his later meeting with European leaders, Mr Trump acknowledged that leaders would “need to discuss…possible exchanges of territory.” 

But that seemed to stop well short of dictating such swaps, as has been feared.

Perhaps the most important signal from the meeting was Mr Trump’s apparent openness to security guarantees for Ukraine. 

Steve Witkoff, Mr Trump’s envoy, who was also present in the Oval Office meeting, had suggested a day earlier that America was open to “Article Five-like” guarantees and that Russia had accepted this idea. It is not clear what that would mean in practice. 

Mr Trump said Ukraine would have a “lot of help” as part of any deal. 

European forces would be the “first line of defence”, he said, perhaps alluding to British-French-led plans for a military deployment in Ukraine, but “we’re going to help them out, we’ll be involved.”

Mr Zelensky, having learnt from the acrimony earlier in the year, was fulsome in his praise of Mr Trump, avoiding any hint of disagreement. 

But in practice, he faces a difficult task. 

The notion of Ukraine voluntarily giving up the heavily fortified western sections of the Donbas, a region in the south-east of Ukraine, is anathema to a vast majority of Ukrainians. 

As well as worsening Ukraine’s military position, it could also destabilise the country politically. 

Mr Zelensky said that he had shown Mr Trump “a lot of details on the battlefield” on a map in the Oval Office.

In contrast, Ukrainian officials are more open to the idea of a freeze. 

“The baseline is stopping at the line of conflict,” says a senior Ukrainian official. 

There is confidence that a short term deal is within reach, but many doubts over how long it will last. 

“We will be in conflict with each other for a while, that’s for sure,” says the official. 

“Hundreds of years of shared history tell us that.”

After Mr Trump’s meeting with Mr Zelensky concluded, the two men walked out with no evidence of any disagreement in the Oval Office once the cameras had left. 

They were then joined by Mark Rutte, Emmanuel Macron, Giorgia Meloni, Friedrich Merz, Keir Starmer, Alexander Stubb and Ursula von der Leyen, the leaders of NATO, France, Italy, Germany, Britain, Finland and the European Commission respectively—a significant show of diplomatic muscle designed to buttress Mr Zelensky’s position and shape Mr Trump’s thinking. 

Mr Trump lavished praise on each ally in turn. 

Negotiations over the exact nature of a security guarantee to Ukraine are expected to last for hours. 

But the prospect of an extraordinary meeting involving Mr Trump, Mr Putin and the man the Russian has sought to overthrow and kill, Mr Zelensky, could be drawing closer.