President Donald Trump’s embrace of Russia’s Vladimir Putin on Friday has European leaders anxious that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy won’t get the same friendly treatment. And they’re taking action to bolster Kyiv’s chances.
Plans are in the works to send at least one of Trump’s favorite interlocutors, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, along with Zelenskyy when he comes to Washington Monday to meet with Trump, according to two European diplomats and a person familiar with the matter. The idea is that Stubb can help prevent any flare-ups between Trump and Zelenskyy and convince the U.S. president to include Europe in any further talks.
Trump’s meeting with Putin in Alaska on Friday failed to deliver any breakthroughs and left the road ahead uncertain. Trump said he will meet Zelenskyy in Washington on Monday and then would try to bring the Ukrainian and Russian leaders together to work toward a peace agreement.
Europe and Ukraine see Monday’s summit as key to making sure that Trump does not accede to demands from Putin that they find unacceptable, such as ceding Ukrainian territory to Russia that Moscow has only partially taken control of.
Ukraine’s European allies are also keen to avoid another ambush of Zelenskyy that could upend ties in this delicate moment. A disastrous White House meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy in February set the relationship back for months.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte — who has cultivated a close relationship with Trump — may also make the trip to Washington, according to one person familiar with the matter.
Diplomats, European officials and people familiar with the negotiations were all granted anonymity so they could speak candidly and share details about tense international deliberations ahead of Monday’s Zelenskyy meeting in the Oval Office.
Trump said that he would meet first with Zelenskyy on Monday and then would look to bring Putin and the Ukrainian leader together for a trilateral session. Putin has so far rejected meeting with Zelenskyy and he gave no indication on Friday he had changed that position.
“It is clear that the outcome of the Alaska summit has risen concerns in Europe, as Trump seems to have bought a large portion of Putin’s argument,” said Camille Grand, a former top NATO official who has been in touch with senior European officials involved.
Trump has abandoned his threat of immediate sanctions on Russia should the meeting not yield a breakthrough and shifted away from seeking an immediate ceasefire to a comprehensive deal, adopting language close to Putin’s to talk about the end to the fighting. “The meeting is not viewed as a total disaster, but Europeans are definitely worried about the direction of travel,” added Grand, now a fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “Hence the effort to avoid another drama during Zelenskyy’s upcoming visit.”
While publicly Europe and Ukraine have appeared upbeat, privately officials were wary of Putin’s red carpet welcome back to the West, where he secured the veneer of global legitimacy without making the kind of gestures toward peace the U.S., Europe and Ukraine have sought.
“Worries have been there all the way this year, and yesterday’s meeting did not really help,” a European official said.
Trump’s position on the war has yo-yoed in recent weeks. While he had for months blamed Ukraine for the conflict, he had been more critical of Putin and Russia in the lead-up to the summit. He even said Putin would face “severe consequences,” if he did not agree to stop the war after Friday’s gathering.
But after several hours of meetings with Putin in Alaska, Trump backtracked on a demand for an immediate ceasefire, again said it would be up to Ukraine to end the fighting and advised Kyiv to “take the deal,” without specifying what Putin had suggested.
Trump said after the summit that he negotiated with Putin over land swaps but declined to provide more details.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
French President Emmanuel Macron and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Sunday will lead a teleconference among the “coalition of the willing” — countries that have indicated they will provide troops and other support to Ukraine at the end of the war, according to a European official.
Ahead of the summit, Trump said he supported some American role in providing security guarantees — some form of assurance or support from Washington to deter Russia from attacking again after a peace deal is agreed. Nordic and Baltic leaders welcomed those commitments again after Trump spoke with European officials late Friday.
While Trump did much more than usual to consult with Europe in the lead-up to the summit with Putin and after, the frequent contact does not seem to have yielded tangible results. European officials are relieved that Trump did not agree to a deal with Putin but disappointed that the threat of steep secondary tariffs targeting third countries buying Russian oil was tabled.
“They want to try to influence the negotiation process as much as possible, because they know Trump really wants to do it this way, and they don’t want to leave the initiative to Putin,” said Giuseppe Spatafora, a former NATO official who is now a research analyst at the EU Institute for Security Studies. “In general, the Europeans talk much more often to Trump than during the first 100 days, which is good. They have influence. But it’s limited.”
Zelenskyy’s last visit to the Oval Office in February quickly went off the rails when Vice President JD Vance and later Trump both lectured him for not being grateful enough for American support and overplaying what they said was a weak diplomatic position. Zelenskyy’s decision to wear a black polo, black pants and boots rather than a suit further soured the atmosphere.
But Trump and Zelenskyy have been on better terms in recent meetings, as Kyiv’s allies sought to improve the relationship and Trump’s frustration with Putin mounted.
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