KYIV, Ukraine — European and NATO leaders announced Sunday they will join President Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington for talks with President Trump on ending Russia’s war in Ukraine, with the possibility of U.S. security guarantees now on the negotiating table.
Leaders from Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Finland are rallying around Zelensky after his exclusion from Trump’s summit on Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Their pledge to be at Zelensky’s side at the White House on Monday is an apparent effort to ensure the meeting goes better than the Ukrainian leader’s last one in February, when Trump berated him in a heated Oval Office encounter.
“The Europeans are very afraid of the Oval Office scene being repeated, and so they want to support Mr. Zelensky to the hilt,” said retired French Gen. Dominique Trinquand, a former head of France’s military mission at the United Nations. “It’s a power struggle and a position of strength that might work with Trump.”
Putin agreed at his summit with Trump in Alaska that the U.S. and its European allies could offer Ukraine a security guarantee resembling NATO’s collective defense mandate as part of an eventual deal to end the 3½-year war, special U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff said in an interview Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
It “was the first time we had ever heard the Russians agree to that,” said Witkoff, who called it “game-changing.”
Later, French President Emmanuel Macron said the European delegation will ask Trump to back plans they drafted to beef up Ukraine’s armed forces — already Europe’s largest outside Russia — with more training and equipment to secure any peace.
“We need a credible format for the Ukrainian army, that’s the first point, and say — we Europeans and Americans — how we’ll train them, equip them, and finance this effort in the long term,” the French leader said.
The European-drafted plans also envision an allied force in Ukraine away from the front lines to reassure Kyiv that peace will hold and to dissuade another Russian invasion, Macron said. He spoke after a nearly two-hour video call Sunday with nations in Europe and farther afield — including Canada, Australia and Japan — that are involved in what they call a “coalition of the willing.”
The “several thousand men on the ground in Ukraine in the zone of peace” would signal that “our fates are linked,” Macron said.
“This is what we must discuss with the Americans: Who is ready to do what?” Macron said. “Otherwise, I think the Ukrainians simply cannot accept commitments that are theoretical.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, at an earlier news conference with Zelensky in Brussels, said, “We welcome President Trump’s willingness to contribute to Article 5-like security guarantees for Ukraine. And the ‘coalition of the willing’ — including the European Union — is ready to do its share.”
Macron said the substance of security guarantees will be more important than whether they are given an Article 5-type label.
“A theoretical article isn’t enough; the question is one of substance,” he said. “We must start out by saying that the first of the security guarantees for Ukraine is a strong Ukrainian army.”
Along with Von der Leyen and Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Finnish President Alexander Stubb said they will take part in Monday’s talks at the White House, as will the secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Mark Rutte.
The European leaders’ demonstration of support could help ease concerns in Kyiv and other European capitals that Ukraine risks being railroaded into an unfavorable peace deal.
Neil Melvin, director of international security at the London-based Royal United Services Institute, said European leaders are trying to “shape this fast-evolving agenda.” After the Alaska summit, the idea of a ceasefire appears all but abandoned, with the narrative shifting toward Putin’s agenda of ensuring Ukraine does not join NATO or even the European Union.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that a possible ceasefire is “not off the table” but that the best way to end the war would be through a “full peace deal.”
Putin has implied that he sees Europe as a hindrance to negotiations. He has also resisted meeting Zelensky in person, saying that such a summit can take place only once the groundwork for a peace deal has been laid.
Speaking to reporters after his meeting with Trump, the Russian leader raised the idea that Kyiv and other European capitals could “create obstacles” to derail potential progress with “behind-the-scenes intrigue.”
For now, the Zelensky meeting offers the Europeans the “only way” to get into the discussions about the future of Ukraine and European security, Melvin said.
But the sheer number of European leaders potentially in attendance means the group will have to be “mindful” not to give “contradictory” messages, he said.
“The risk is they look heavy-handed and are ganging up on Trump,” he added. “Trump won’t want to be put in a corner.”
Although details remain hazy on what Article 5-like security guarantees from the U.S. and Europe would entail for Ukraine, it could mirror NATO membership terms outlined in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, in which an attack on one member of the alliance is seen as an attack on all.
Zelensky continues to stress the importance of both U.S. and European involvement in any negotiations.
“A security guarantee is a strong army. Only Ukraine can provide that. Only Europe can finance this army, and weapons for this army can be provided by our domestic production and European production. But there are certain things that are in short supply and are only available in the United States,” he said at the news conference Sunday alongside Von der Leyen.
Zelensky also countered Trump’s assertion — which aligned with Putin’s preference — that the two sides should negotiate a complete end to the war rather than first securing a ceasefire. He said a ceasefire would provide breathing room to review Putin’s demands.
“It’s impossible to do this under the pressure of weapons,” he said. “Putin does not want to stop the killing, but he must do it.”
Kullab and Leicester write for the Associated Press and reported from Kyiv and Le Pecq, France, respectively. AP writers Pan Pylas in London and Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England, contributed to this report.