Trump-Zelenskyy meeting live updates as leaders hold Ukraine talks at White House

Zelenskyy offered brief remarks thanking Mr. Trump for his efforts to end the war, as well as first lady Melania Trump’s efforts. 

“Thank you very much for your efforts, personal efforts to stop the killings and stop this war,” Zelenskyy said. 

Zelenskyy also thanked the first lady for a letter she reportedly wrote to Putin, urging him to allow the children of Ukraine to grow up, and grow up in peace. 

“She sent a letter to Putin about our children,” Zelenskyy said. 

The president kicked off his meeting in the Oval Office with Zelenskyy with brief remarks.

“It’s an honor to have the president of Ukraine with us,” Mr. Trump said. “We’ve had a lot of good discussions, a lot of good talks. And I think progress is being made — very substantial progress — in many ways.”

The president said “there’s a possibility” that something could come out of the meeting with Putin, adding that “today’s meeting is very important.”

Zelenskyy’s motorcade arrived outside the West Wing of the White House just before 1:15 p.m. Mr. Trump greeted him as he emerged from a black SUV, shaking his hand and escorting him inside.

Asked by a reporter what his message is to the people of Ukraine, Mr. Trump responded, “We love them. We love them.” 

Zelenskyy is set to hold a bilateral meeting with Mr. Trump and other U.S. officials in the Oval Office first, before expanded meetings with European leaders later in the afternoon.

Zelenskyy said in a post on X that he met with several of the European leaders Monday morning to get on the same page before heading to the White House.

“Together with the leaders of Finland, the United Kingdom, Italy, the European Commission, and the NATO Secretary General, we coordinated our positions ahead of the meeting with President Trump. Ukraine is ready for a real truce and for establishing a new security architecture. We need peace,” he wrote, along with a video of him greeting the leaders outside the Ukrainian embassy in Washington. 

Shortly after noon, European leaders began arriving on the South Lawn. 

The order of arrival was:

• NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte
• Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission
• U.K Prime Minister Keir Starmer
• Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni 
• Finnish President Alexander Stubb 
• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz
• French President Emmanuel Macron

Their motorcades passed by an honor guard of U.S. servicemembers holding flags along the driveway leading to the South Portico of the White House.

The president did not greet the leaders outside. Instead, Monica Crowley, the chief of protocol at the State Department, was on hand to welcome them. A red carpet outlined the path for the leaders from their vehicles into the White House.

In a post on Truth Social before the leaders arrived, the president took aim at critics who have questioned his approach to ending the war in Ukraine, saying the Wall Street Journal and others “truly don’t have a clue.”

“I’m only here to stop it, not to prosecute it any further,” he wrote. “It would have NEVER happened if I was President. I know exactly what I’m doing, 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.”

He continued: “They are ‘STUPID’ people, with no common sense, intelligence, or understanding, and they only make the current R/U disaster more difficult to FIX. Despite all of my lightweight and very jealous critics, I’ll get it done — I always do!!!”

Russian attacks on Ukraine continued ahead of the meeting in Washington. An overnight wave of air strikes hit cities around the country, including Kyiv, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa and Sumy, according to local media.

Ukrainian authorities said a drone attack on a residential area in the city of Kharkiv killed a toddler, a 16-year-old and five other people.

“Despite all of the diplomacy and peace efforts, Russia continues to kill civilians,” Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said in a social media post. “Russia is a murderous war machine that Ukraine is holding back. And it must be stopped through transatlantic unity and pressure. Moscow must stop the killing in order to advance diplomacy.”

“This was a demonstrative and cynical Russian strike. They are aware that a meeting is taking place today in Washington that will address the end of the war,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media, adding that dozens more people, including children, had been injured in the attack on Kharkiv.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune praised Mr. Trump ahead of the meeting with Zelenskyy in a post on X, saying the president “should be commended for his dogged determination to bring peace to Ukraine and for his courage to engage with all parties in a way his predecessor refused to do.”

Thune reiterated that the Senate is ready to provide the White House with “any economic leverage needed to keep Russia at the table to negotiate a just and lasting peace in Ukraine” in what appeared to be a nod to the bipartisan effort in Congress to impose new economic sanctions aimed at ramping up pressure on the Kremlin. 

For months, the Senate has been pushing for the sanctions bill, which was introduced by GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham in April and has 84 cosponors, but Thune has so far deferred to the White House on timing.

U.S. allies hope Monday’s meeting will go better than Zelenskyy’s memorable last visit to the White House in February. That meeting devolved into chaos, finger pointing and insults, prompting Zelenskyy’s visit to be cut short. 

During the course of an Oval Office meeting, Mr. Trump threatened Zelenskyy to make a deal with Russia or “we’re out,” while Vance accused the Ukrainian leader of being “disrespectful.” 

“You don’t have the cards right now,” Mr. Trump said in February, as Zelenskyy interjected and disagreed. “With us, you start having cards. Right now, you don’t have your playing cards, your playing cards — you’re gambling with the lives of millions of people. You’re gambling with World War III. You’re gambling with World War III.” 

“Have you said ‘thank you’ once, this entire meeting? No, in this entire meeting, have you said ‘thank you?'” Vance said to Zelenskyy. 

Zelenskyy’s voice remained largely measured, while Vance and Mr. Trump raised theirs. Amid the chaos, a reporter asked — what if Russia violates a ceasefire?

“What if anything?” Mr. Trump responded. “What if a bomb drops on your head right now? OK?”

Today’s meeting at the White House with Ukraine and other European nations is “the first meeting in such a format, and it is very serious,” Zelenskyy wrote on X. 

He thanked Keith Kellogg, the special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, for a meeting before the gathering at the White House, posting a video that showed a warm greeting between the two and their discussions. 

“We discussed the battlefield situation and our strong diplomatic capabilities — Ukraine’s and all of Europe’s together with America,” Zelenskyy said in his post. 

He arrived in Washington on Sunday. 

The Ukrainian president said that Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities continued overnight, and two children were among those killed. 

“People were simply sleeping when the Russian army launched strikes on the cities,” Zelenskyy said. 

“Russia can only be forced into peace through strength, and President Trump has that strength,” he wrote. “We have to do everything right to make peace happen. Thank you!”

On Sunday, a slew of European leaders announced they would be accompanying Zelenskyy on his trip to Washington, including:

• EU Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen
• NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte
• British Prime Minister Keir Starmer
• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz
• French President Emannuel Macron
• Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni
• Finnish President Alexander Stubb

Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social on Monday morning that “We have never had so many European Leaders here at one time. A great honor for America!!! Lets see what the results will be???”

Mr. Trump will meet with Zelenskyy in the Oval Office before holding a larger meeting with participating European leaders, with both events partly open to cameras. 

Reporters are expected to be ushered into the beginning of Mr. Trump’s meeting with Zelenskyy at 1:15 p.m., as well as part of the meeting with European leaders at 3 p.m. Those times are subject to change, as meetings may run long. There is no press conference scheduled with Mr. Trump and any European leaders. 

Other U.S. officials will be in the Oval Office for the meeting with Zelenskyy, including Vice President JD Vance, Rubio, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and special envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg. 

Here’s the full schedule, released by the White House:

• Noon: European leaders arrive
• 1 p.m.: Mr. Trump greets Zelenskyy 
• 1:15 p.m.: Bilateral meeting between Mr. Trump and Zelenskyy in the Oval Office
• 2:15 p.m.: Mr. Trump greets European leaders in the State Dining Room 
• 2:30 p.m.: Mr. Trump and European leaders take a “family photo”
• 3 p.m.: Mr. Trump holds a multilateral meeting with European leaders in the East Room

Rubio said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that although there wasn’t a “lot of progress” in the Alaska summit on Friday, it resulted in “enough movement” to justify Monday’s talks.

“If not, we wouldn’t be having Zelenskyy flying all the way over here,” Rubio said. “We wouldn’t be having all the Europeans coming all the way over here. Now understand, and take with a grain of salt, I’m not saying we’re on the verge of a peace deal, but I am saying that we saw movement, enough movement to justify a follow-up meeting with Zelenskyy and the Europeans, enough movement for us to dedicate even more time to this.”

On the possibility of further sanctions on Russia, such as the secondary sanctions Mr. Trump has threatened to impose, Rubio said punishing Russia now would prompt Moscow to disengage.

“The moment the president puts those additional sanctions, that’s the end of the talks. You’ve basically locked in at least another year to year and a half of war and death and destruction,” Rubio said. “We may unfortunately wind up there, but we don’t want to wind up there. We want to wind up with a peace deal that ends this war so Ukraine can go on with the rest of their lives and rebuild their country and be assured that this is never going to happen again.”

Rubio said “both sides” are going to have to make concessions. “That’s how these deals are made, whether we like it or not,” he told Brennan. 

Read more here.

Putin agreed at the Alaska summit to allow the U.S. and its European allies to offer Ukraine a security guarantee resembling NATO’s collective defense mandate as part of an eventual deal to end the 3 1/2-year war in Ukraine, special U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff said Sunday.

“We were able to win the following concession: That the United States could offer Article 5-like protection, which is one of the real reasons why Ukraine wants to be in NATO,” he told CNN’s “State of the Union.” He added that it “was the first time we had ever heard the Russians agree to that” and called it “game-changing.”

Article 5, at the heart of the 32-member military alliance, states that an armed attack against one or more of the members shall be considered an attack against all members.

Witkoff, who had joined Rubio for the talks at a military base in Alaska, offered few details on how such an agreement would work. But it appeared to be a major shift for Putin and could serve as a workaround to his long-standing objection to Ukraine’s potential NATO membership.

Read more here.