{"id":358283,"date":"2025-08-20T02:12:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T02:12:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/358283\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T02:12:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T02:12:19","slug":"trump-offers-air-support-to-ukraine-as-he-pushes-for-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/358283\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump offers air support to Ukraine as he pushes for summit"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Trump has said that it would be \u201cimpossible\u201d for Ukraine to join Nato and that US security guarantees for the country would be limited to air support as divisions began to emerge with European leaders after Monday\u2019s show of unity in Washington.<\/p>\n

Trump said the idea of Ukraine joining Nato was \u201cinsulting\u201d and called the country \u201ca buffer between Russia and the rest of Europe\u201d in his first post-summit interview, echoing Moscow\u2019s talking points.<\/p>\n

After cordial meetings<\/a> with President Zelensky of Ukraine and seven European leaders, the change in tone from the US president<\/a> marked a repositioning to place himself between western Europe and Russia, where he believes he stands the best chance to broker peace.<\/p>\n

He conceded he had doubts about Vladimir Putin<\/a>\u2019s willingness to go along with the peace process, amid wrangling over the venue for the next step, a Putin-Zelensky meeting.<\/p>\n

Putin reportedly said Zelensky should travel to Moscow for a summit on the Ukraine war. The Russian leader made the suggestion during a 40-minute phone call with Trump on Monday, while Zelensky<\/a> and European leaders were at the White House for talks, \u00adaccording to sources.<\/p>\n

\u201cPutin mentioned Moscow,\u201d a source told the AFP news agency, adding that Zelensky had said \u201cno\u201d in response. \u00adPutin would have made the suggestion knowing that Zelensky is highly \u00adunlikely to travel to the capital of an enemy state during wartime.<\/p>\n

Yuri Ushakov, Putin\u2019s foreign policy adviser, said on Tuesday that it would be \u201cadvisable to explore the possibility of raising the level of representatives of the Ukrainian and Russian sides\u201d.<\/p>\n

Sergey Lavrov, Russia\u2019s foreign minister, equivocated further, saying any direct talks had to be considered \u201cextremely carefully\u201d and would require \u201cstep-by-step gradual preparation\u201d.<\/p>\n

Their comments signalled that Moscow would only agree to talks between senior officials, despite Trump\u2019s impatience for the two presidents to meet face to face.<\/p>\n

The Europeans proposed Geneva for a potential meeting place and the White House is said to be favouring Budapest in Hungary, led by Viktor Orban<\/a>, the EU\u2019s most pro-Russia leader.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope President Putin is going to be good and if he\u2019s not, that\u2019s going to be a rough situation,\u201d Trump told Fox & Friends on Tuesday. \u201cI hope that President Zelensky will do what he has to do. He has to show some flexibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"President<\/p>\n

Trump and Zelensky at the White House on Monday<\/p>\n

SHUTTERSTOCK<\/p>\n

Trump added it \u201ctakes two to tango\u201d but Zelensky has already agreed to a bilateral meeting with Putin followed by trilateral talks involving Trump to seal a deal. Moscow has not publicly committed to such a meeting although Karoline Leavitt, Trump\u2019s press secretary, insisted Putin had given private assurances.<\/p>\n

Negotiations intensified on the detail of security guarantees before a virtual meeting of Nato military leaders on Tuesday including General Dan Caine, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. The British chief of the defence staff, \u00adAdmiral Sir Tony Radakin, will be in Washington for consultations on \u201cplans to deliver robust security guarantees and prepare for the deployment of a reassurance force if the hostilities ended\u201d, Downing Street said. <\/p>\n

Sir Keir Starmer told a virtual meeting of the \u201ccoalition of the willing\u201d of European allies on Tuesday that there was \u201ca real sense of unity and shared goal of securing a just and lasting peace for Ukraine\u201d at their White House meeting with Trump.<\/p>\n

The suggestion of a European peacekeeping force, supported by the US, provoked an angry response from \u00adMoscow, which said that any scenario involving Nato soldiers coming to Ukraine\u2019s defence would risk \u201can \u00aduncontrolled escalation of the conflict with unpredictable consequences\u201d.<\/p>\n

During the virtual meeting, Starmer and President Macron of France also discussed how pressure could be placed on Putin until he showed he was \u201cready to take serious action to end his illegal invasion,\u201d Downing Street said.<\/p>\n

Trump, by contrast, appears to have abandoned talk of further sanctions on Russia and of a ceasefire, as he banks on assurances from Putin that he is committed to making a peace deal. Trump was caught on a hot mic at the Washington summit telling Macron: \u201cI think he wants to make a deal for me. Do you understand? As crazy as it sounds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Macron told French TV on Tuesday that Putin \u201cis a predator, an ogre at our door \u2026 who needs to keep eating for his own survival\u201d and that Europeans \u201cmust not be naive\u201d about him.<\/p>\n

Trump said: \u201cWe\u2019re going to find out about President Putin in the next couple of weeks \u2026 It\u2019s possible that he doesn\u2019t want to make a deal.\u201d <\/p>\n

The US president said he would attend a three-way summit with Putin and Zelensky provided a face-to-face meeting between the pair \u201cworks out\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Trump<\/p>\n

Trump with Putin in Alaska on Friday<\/p>\n

ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS\/AFP\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re setting up a meeting with \u00adPutin and Zelensky,\u201d he told Fox & Friends. \u201cThey\u2019re the ones that have to call the shots, we\u2019re 7,000 miles away\u2026. We\u2019ll see what happens there and then if that works out \u2014 if it works out \u2014 then I\u2019ll go to the trilat and close it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Monday Trump left open the possibility of US troops playing a role in security guarantees for Ukraine but there was an immediate backlash from the isolationist wing of his Maga base.<\/p>\n

Asked about US \u201cboots on the ground\u201d, he said: \u201cThey\u2019re [the Europeans] willing to put people on the ground. We\u2019re willing to help them with things, especially probably if you could talk about air because there\u2019s nobody [who] has the kind of stuff we have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russia has objected to the idea of European troops in Ukraine, claiming this would amount to a Nato presence on its borders. But Trump said: \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to be a problem, to be honest with you. I think Putin is tired of it. I think they\u2019re all tired of it. But you never know. We\u2019re going to find out about President Putin in the next couple of weeks.\u201d <\/p>\n

Asked about \u201cland swaps\u201d, Trump appeared to lean towards Russia\u2019s bid to take the Donbas region as the price of a durable peace. He also returned to the talking point that Ukraine bore some responsibility for the Russian invasion.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, everybody can play cute and this and that, but, you know, Ukraine is going to get their life back, they\u2019re going to stop having people killed all over the place and they\u2019re going to get a lot of land,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

Trump reiterated his belief that his predecessor President Biden was to blame for the war, which he maintains would not have started if he had been president at the time.<\/p>\n

While his motives for ending it include a Nobel peace prize<\/a>, he suggested another reason: \u201cI want to try and get to Heaven if possible. I\u2019m hearing I\u2019m not doing well. I really hit the bottom of the totem pole. But if I can get to Heaven, this will be one of the reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Trump has said that it would be \u201cimpossible\u201d for Ukraine to join Nato and that US security…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-358283","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115058674538453188","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358283","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=358283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}