Ukraine's Zelensky to meet Trump on Monday after Alaska summit fails to secure ceasefire

Mr Zelensky spoke on the phone for over an hour and a half with Mr Trump, who was on board Air Force One en route back to the White House after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska for nearly three hours on Friday.

The 47-year-old Ukrainian leader said the phone call with Mr Trump began as a bilateral conversation for over an hour before European leaders joined them, the NY Post reports. 

Mr Trump appeared to confirm that an in-person trilateral meeting with Mr Zelensky and Mr Putin was in the works.

“We support President Trump’s proposal for a trilateral meeting between Ukraine, the USA, and Russia. Ukraine emphasises that key issues can be discussed at the level of leaders, and a trilateral format is suitable for this,” Mr Zelensky said.

Mr Zelensky said he was grateful to Mr Trump for the invitation to Monday’s meeting.

He called on European leaders to join Mr Trump in pressuring Russia to end the war that has killed nearly 14,000 people in Ukraine.

“It is important that Europeans are involved at every stage to ensure reliable security guarantees together with America,” he said. 

“We also discussed positive signals from the American side regarding participation in guaranteeing Ukraine’s security. We continue to co-ordinate our positions with all partners. I thank everyone who is helping.”

Mr Trump and Mr Putin met at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, for their first meeting since Mr Trump’s first term in office.

When the nearly three-hour meeting ended, the two leaders emerged from behind closed doors and spoke at a joint press conference.

Mr Trump proclaimed “great progress” had been made towards ending the deadly conflict, but cautioned, “there’s no deal until there’s a deal.”

“There were many, many points that we agreed on, most of them,” Mr Trump said at a media availability where neither he nor Putin took any questions.

Mr Trump remained vague with details as neither leader shared any specifics of what was discussed during the high-stakes summit.

Mr Putin, like Mr Trump, described the meeting as productive and claimed repeatedly that the men had made an “understanding” without providing any details.

The strongman added that he hoped “today’s understanding will be the starting point not only for the solution of the Ukrainian issue, but also will help us bring back businesslike and pragmatic relations between Russia and the US.”

“I would like to hope that the understanding that we’ve reached together will help us bring closer that goal and will pave the path towards peace in Ukraine,” Mr Putin added. “We expect that Kyiv and European capitals will perceive that constructively and that they won’t throw a wrench in the works.

This article was first published in the NY Post and republished with permission