President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday that he hoped Russia’s war in his country would end “before winter” and that the Trump administration would help Kyiv do it.
“I hope we will end this war, and President Trump will help us end this war,” Mr. Zelensky said during a meeting with Mr. Trump. “I think we need to do this as quick as possible — before winter,” he added. The U.S. president nodded and repeated his words with approval.
But that is an ambitious goal.
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the deadliest land war in Europe since World War II, is nearly five years old. Each side is locked in an escalating spiral of airstrikes, and an effort by U.S. officials to restart talks between the governments in Kyiv and Moscow to avert what analysts say could be a devastating winter for Ukraine has not borne fruit.
Still, Mr. Trump appeared optimistic sitting next to the Ukrainian leader on the sidelines of the General Assembly. He told reporters he believed that Vladimir V. Putin, Russia’s leader, would be willing to have a meeting with Mr. Zelensky.
Mr. Trump said of Mr. Putin: “He’ll meet. He’s willing to meet. He wants to see the war end.” Mr. Putin and Mr. Zelensky have not met face to face in seven years.
Russia did not immediately respond to the remarks.
The meeting came after Mr. Zelensky and Mr. Trump had spoken by phone over the weekend. Mr. Zelensky has said that he planned to discuss “de-escalation proposals” with Mr. Trump during the gathering of world leaders in New York.
This month, Mr. Trump’s special envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, met with officials in Ukraine, in their first trip to the country, a diplomatic tour aimed at reviving efforts to end the war. They had arrived from Moscow, where the envoys had spent hours with Mr. Putin.
But the Trump administration, consumed by the war with Iran, had allowed the peace process to enter such a deep freeze that the trip was just a preliminary step — talks about how to resume talks. And Mr. Zelensky had said it appeared that the war would continue at least into the winter.
Those meetings came at a moment when Russia and Ukraine have been waging an intensifying air war, at least in part to try to gain the upper hand in any settlement talks.
That was reflected in the delicate discussions around the American envoys’ recent trip. The United States had secured an agreement that Ukraine and Russia would suspend attacks on each other’s capitals while Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner were in the cities, according to officials familiar with the diplomatic effort.
Cassandra Vinograd contributed reporting.
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