The last time President Volodymyr Zelensky returned to Kyiv from Washington, Ukraine had been plunged into its biggest diplomatic crisis of the war. A disastrous meeting with President Trump had prompted the United States to temporarily freeze all military aid and intelligence sharing with the war-torn nation, leaving Kyiv scrambling to repair the fallout.
Mr. Zelensky’s return this week from another high-stakes meeting at the White House could not have been more different. This time, he projected cautious optimism as he sat down with reporters on Wednesday, after the United States had agreed to participate in security guarantees for Ukraine as part of a postwar settlement intended to deter further Russian aggression.
“Before our meeting in Washington, the United States had not been involved in the security guarantees,” said Mr. Zelensky, looking tired but resolute after the long trip home. “Now we have heard about their readiness to join. This is very important for Ukraine and for all of Europe. I am very grateful to President Trump for this.”
What the guarantees will entail remains unclear, and Russia on Wednesday threw a wrench in the works by insisting that it must be part of these assurances. That demand would effectively give the aggressor a say in the victim’s future security architecture, an obvious nonstarter for Kyiv.
And not long after Mr. Zelensky had gotten back to Kyiv, Russia overnight on Thursday launched a barrage of nearly 600 drones and 40 missiles at Ukrainian cities, according to data from the Ukrainian Air Force. It was the largest air attack since peace talks intensified about two weeks ago.
The attack hit several western Ukrainian cities that are rarely targeted, including Mukachevo, in the mostly unscathed Transcarpathia region. A large electronics manufacturing plant there, operated by the U.S.-founded company Flex, was set ablaze in the attack, leaving some 15 people injured, according to the local authorities. One person was killed in another strike on the western city of Lviv, the local military administration said.
“Putin talks about peace, but he doesn’t take any steps to achieve it,” Andriy Yermak, Mr. Zelensky’s chief of staff, wrote on social media Thursday morning.
Still, Mr. Zelensky was guardedly upbeat over the direction of the talks. The White House meeting, which included a flurry of European leaders who attended to back Mr. Zelensky, has allowed Kyiv to approach future peace talks more confidently. It is a marked turn from last week, when Mr. Trump appeared to side with Kremlin’s demands to push for a direct peace agreement requiring Ukraine to cede parts of the Donbas region in the east that it still controls.
Mr. Trump softened these demands at the White House on Monday and instead pivoted to organizing a bilateral meeting between Mr. Zelensky and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, saying it would help advance the talks.
On Wednesday, Mr. Zelensky reiterated that he was ready for such a meeting, as the Kremlin has remained noncommittal. He suggested that the meeting take place “in neutral Europe,” naming Austria, Switzerland and Turkey as potential hosts, while dismissing Moscow and Budapest, another city that has been mentioned as a possible site, as off the table.
Mr. Zelensky said he wanted the meeting to take place after Ukraine and its Western allies had hammered out exactly what kind of security guarantees Kyiv could obtain. “We want to have an understanding of the security guarantees architecture within seven to 10 days,” he said. NATO military chiefs and national security advisers have been meeting this week to draft possible guarantees.
The Ukrainian leader called guarantees modeled on NATO’s Article 5, which obliges members to defend an ally under attack, “an approximate framework” agreed upon in Washington. But he stressed that Ukraine needed “to understand which country will be ready to do what at each specific moment” so that these guarantees are more than just a vague pledge.
Some countries may deploy troops in Ukraine, while others could provide air defense or secure Ukrainian airspace with their fighter jets, Mr. Zelensky said. He added that the U.S. commitment had helped overcome hesitancy among other European countries to participate. He noted, for instance, that Turkey had signaled that it would be ready to provide security in the Black Sea after Mr. Trump’s remarks.
The Ukrainian hope is that bilateral talks would evolve into a trilateral meeting with Mr. Trump to help advance a peace agreement. Mr. Zelensky said he was counting on the United States to use the threat of additional economic penalties to pressure Russia into agreeing to such a framework.
“My message to President Trump was very direct,” Mr. Zelensky said. “We are ready for a configuration of bilateral and trilateral meetings. And if the Russians are not ready for this, we ask for tariffs to be imposed. We are requesting additional sanctions and tariff measures from the U.S. because they will really work.”
That may be an elusive goal. Mr. Trump’s repeated threats of new sanctions to force Russia into a cease-fire have so far gone unenforced, even as the fighting continues unabated.
Constant Méheut reports on the war in Ukraine, including battlefield developments, attacks on civilian centers and how the war is affecting its people.
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