NATO<\/a>,” he said.<\/p>\n![\"Putin](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1755463752_991_2025-08-16T175029Z_13274526_RC2R7GAUV0RW_RTRMADP_3_UKRAINE-CRISIS-SUMMIT-RUSSIA.JPG\")
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open image in gallery<\/p>\n
Putin and Trump shake hands during their Alaska meeting (REUTERS)<\/p>\n
Witkoff wouldn\u2019t specify whether the security guarantee could lead to what Trump and his followers have long opposed \u2014 a promise to directly engage U.S. troops in defense of Ukraine should Russia continue crossing Trump\u2019s red lines.<\/p>\n
Murphy, on Sunday, seemed to imply that such a guarantee would be the bare minimum standard necessary for any peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat [security guarantee] is an essential element of a peace agreement because any commitment that Vladimir Putin makes to not invade Ukraine again isn’t worth the paper that it’s written on,\u201d said the senator. \u201cHe’s made that commitment many times. So yes, there has to be a guarantee that if Putin were to enter Ukraine after a peace settlement, that there would be some force there, a U.S. force, a U.S.-European force there to defend Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n
He would go on to hammer Trump over reports that Witkoff wouldn\u2019t confirm when pressed by CNN\u2019s Jake Tapper, which revealed that Trump had signaled his own willingness to accept Russian demands for Ukraine to cede the entire occupied Donbas region as part of a potential agreement. Murphy said that the reported development was \u201canother sense that Putin is just in charge of these negotiations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chris Van Hollen, another Democrat on the Foreign Relations panel, was equally critical of Trump\u2019s meeting with the Russian president during an interview with ABC\u2019s Martha Raddatz on This Week.<\/p>\n
Heading into Friday\u2019s summit, Trump warned of \u201csevere consequences\u201d if Russia continued to oppose peace efforts and said that he was working towards an immediate ceasefire. Afterwards, he claimed in a Truth Social post that “It was determined by all [in attendance] 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Van Hollen called this news a \u201csetback\u201d for the U.S.\u2019s European allies and Ukraine, while accusing Trump of being \u201cflattered\u201d by Putin.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no sugarcoating this. Donald Trump, once again, got played by Vladimir Putin. Vladimir Putin got the red carpet treatment on American soil. But we got no ceasefire, no imminent meeting between Putin and Zelensky,\u201d said Van Hollen.<\/p>\n
Jake Sullivan, national security adviser to the Biden administration, agreed.<\/p>\n
“President Trump\u2019s stated goals were very simple, get an immediate ceasefire, and in the absence of a ceasefire, impose what he called severe consequences,” Sullivan said. “Well, the summit has come and gone. There is no ceasefire. There are no consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump is now scheduled to meet Monday<\/a> with European leaders including Finnish president Alexander Stubb, German chancellor Friedrich Merz, French president Emmanuel Macron and the UK\u2019s Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer. Stubb is known for his personal relationship with Trump, and is poised to be on-hand to quell any disputes between Trump and Ukraine\u2019s Volodymyr Zelensky, who will also be in attendance.<\/p>\nZelensky is reported to be wholly opposed to any demand to recognize Russian occupation of the Donbas as legitimate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-352523","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-united-states","9":"tag-us","10":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115046080298530810","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Sen.](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/murphy_nbc_825.jpg\")
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