Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky with Donald Trump in the White House, August 18, 2025 (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP)

EA-Times Radio VideoCast: Zelensky’s “Smartest Move” in Washington

EA-Times Radio VideoCast Special: Zelensky’s White House Triumph

EA-Times Radio VideoCast: Ukraine — Can Zelensky and Europe Counter Putin’s Manipulation of Trump?

Monday’s Coverage: Zelensky and Europe’s Leaders in White House

UPDATE 1806 GMT:

European Union foreign policy head Kaja Kallas says the bloc’s 19th sanctions package over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine should be ready by next month.

Kallas spoke after a virtual European Council summit.

UPDATE 1506 GMT:

“People familiar with the matter” says Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and European partners likened Ukrainian cession of the rest of the Donetsk region to Donald Trump giving away eastern Florida to another country.

They say Trump was struck by the analogy.

UPDATE 1410 GMT:

The office of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer says today’s “Coalition of the Willing” call, involving more than 30 national leaders, focused on next steps on security guarantees for Ukraine.

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Participating countries agreed on a meeting of planning teams with US counterparts “in the coming days to further strengthen plans to deliver robust security guarantees and prepare for the deployment of a reassurance force if the hostilities ended”.

Leaders also talked about “how further pressure – including through sanctions – could be placed on Putin until he showed he was ready to take serious action to end his illegal invasion”.

UPDATE 1259 GMT:

Donald Trump has retreated from his confident declaration that he can get Vladimir Putin to halt Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Trump said to French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday, just before the White House including Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders, “I think [Putin] wants to make a deal for me, you understand that? As crazy as it sounds.”

But the reality TV star told Fox TV this morning, “We’re going to find out about President Putin in the next couple of weeks….It’s possible that he doesn’t want to make a deal.”

He said Putin will face “a rough situation” if the Russian leader does not agree to negotiate.

Trump added, “I hope that Zelensky, President Zelensky, will do what he has to do. He has to show some flexibility.”

UPDATE 1220 GMT:

Ukraine and Russia have carried out an exchange in which Kyiv received 1,000 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers, and Moscow has received 19.

Ukrainian officials said the return includes five bodies of Ukrainian soldiers who died in Russian captivity.

UPDATE 1208 GMT:

Playing for time, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that Vladimir Putin is open to meeting Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, but he stressed that preparations for high-level summits take time.

“We’re not refusing any kind of work format, neither bilateral nor trilateral. The president has said that repeatedly,” Lavrov told state broadcaster Rossiya 24.

The Kremlin has said only that it is “considering the possibility” of holding high-level “direct talks” with Ukraine, following Donald Trump’s phone call with Putin on Monday.

UPDATE 1152 GMT:

India’s imports of Urals crude oil from Russia has fallen by around 65% in August, amid European Union sanctions and the threat of Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Average purchase from Russia’s Black Sea and Baltic ports fell to 400,000 barrels this month from the average this year of 1.18 million barrels.

In August, India’s Nayara refinery received only four shipments of Russian Urals, and no new deliveries are expected until the end of the month. The expected average of 94,000 barrels per day in August is a record low, compared to 366,000 bpd in the third quarter of 2024.

UPDATE 1032 GMT:

Ukrainian drones struck one of Russia’s largest oil refineries overnight.

The Lukoil refinery, the Russian company’s second-largest, was hit and set afire, confirmed the governor of the Volgograd region, Andrei Bocharov.

Residents heard up to 10 explosions.

The Volgograd refinery, with an annual capacity of 14.8 million tons, was forced to halt production after strikes overnight on August 13-14.

UPDATE 1022 GMT:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has commented on yesterday’s meetings in Washington:

This was truly a significant step toward ending the war and ensuring the security of Ukraine and our people. We are already working on the concrete content of the security guarantees.

UPDATE 0931 GMT:

Ukraine Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has commented on the latest Russian attacks on civilians:

UPDATE 0743 GMT:

Russian State outlet TASS is featuring French President Emmanuel Macron’s suggestion of Geneva, Switzerland as the location for a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Macron also noted, in an interview on French radio, that Ukraine-Russia meetings have been held in Istanbul, Turkey.

The Kremlin has still made no official comment, beyond Vladimir Putin’s foreign aide Yuri Ushakov saying that Monday’s call between Putin and Donald Trump lasted 40 minutes.

But former President Dmitry Medvedev has ranted on social media, misspelling Kyiv:

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov tried flattery:

There was a good atmosphere [in Alaska]….A useful conversation, for sure. It was clear that the leader of the United States and his team sincerely want to achieve a result that will be long-term, sustainable, reliable.

Unlike the Europeans, who at that time were saying on every corner that all that was needed was a ceasefire, and after that they would continue to supply weapons to Ukraine.

UPDATE 0733 GMT:

Russia has marked the Zelensky-Europe-Trump meeting — and the invitation for a Zelensky-Putin face-to-face — with one of its largest attacks across Ukraine this month.

Air defenses downed 230 of 270 drones and 6 of 10 missiles. The other drones nad missiles hit 16 locations.

Attacks cut power to residents and damaged administrative buildings in the Kremenchuk and Lubny districts of the Poltava region in central Ukraine.

“Fortunately, there were no casualties,” posted Poltava Governor Volodymyr Kohut.

In the Lubny district almost 1,500 residential and 119 commercial customers are without power.

Kremenchuk Mayor Vitalii Maletskyi posted:

At the very same time when Putin was assuring Trump over the phone that he seeks peace, and when President Volodymyr Zelensky was holding talks at the White House with European leaders about a just peace, Putin’s army launched yet another massive attack on Kremenchuk.

Once again, the world has seen that Putin does not want peace – he wants to destroy Ukraine.

In the Chernihiv region in northern Ukraine, Russian drones damaged infrastructure and cut power.

UPDATE 0724 GMT:

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has hailed the “real progress” in the “good and constructive” talks at the White House.

He praised “two material outcomes”. “Work with the US” on security guarantees — “really important for security in Ukraine, for security in Europe, and for security in the UK” — and agreement on a Zelensky-Putin meeting followed by a trilateral including Donald Trump.

That is a recognition of the principle that on some of these issues, whether it’s territory or the exchange of prisoners, or the very serious issue of the return of children, that is something where Ukraine must be at the table.

These were the two outcomes that were the most important coming out of today. They’re positive outcomes, there was a real sense of unity. We’ve made real progress today.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and his seven European partners have had significant success at the White House, less than three days after Vladimir Putin manipulated Donald Trump over Russia’s 42-month invasion.

Putin had dominated Trump in their Friday meeting in Alaska. He maneuvered the reality TV star into dropping the priority of a ceasefire, and withdrawing the threat of toughened sanctions on Russia and its trading partners. Trump also took up the Kremlin’s demand that it be given all of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine, as well as Crimea and parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in the south.

However, Zelensky and the Europeans — European Council President Ursula von der Leyen, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, and the heads of government of France, Germany, Italy, Finland, and the UK — seized on the Trump camp’s mention of security guarantees for Ukraine over the weekend.

On Monday, they worked on that to get Trump’s repeated references to US as well as European political and military support for what UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer called a “NATO-style” guarantee.

“We will give them very good protection, very good security,” Trump assured in his press appearance with Zelensky, before the meeting with the President and the Europeans.

Trump said the Europeans “are a first line of defense because they’re there, but we’ll help them out”. Zelensky explained that Kyiv has offered to buy $90 billion of US weapons as part of the guarantee, “which primarily includes aircraft and air defense systems”.

He added, “And we have agreements with the US President that when our export opens, they will buy Ukrainian drones. This is important for us.”

Trump declared, “President Putin agreed that Russia would accept security guarantees for Ukraine and this is one of the key points that we need to consider and we’re going to be considering that at the table, also who will do what essentially.”

Zelensky also encouraged Trump’s desire for a trilateral meeting, putting Putin in the position of either accepting — thus recognizing the legitimacy of the President and his Government — or rejecting and taking the blame for avoiding discussions.

“We are ready for trilateral talks. As the President said, it’s a good signal about trilateral,” Zelensky said.

“If everything works out well today, we’ll have a trilat — and I think there will be a reasonable chance of ending the war when we do that,” added Trump.

A Zelensky-Putin Meeting?

Trump and the European leaders said Putin had agreed to a face-to-face encounter with Zelensky, although the Kremlin has not issued a confirmation.

Trump interrupted his session with Zelensky and the Europeans to call the Russian leader. He later posted, “At the conclusion of the meetings, I called President Putin, and began the arrangements for a meeting, at a location to be determined, between President Putin and President Zelensky.” A trilateral meeting would follow.

Russian State agency TASS quoted Putin that he was open to the “idea” of direct talks with Ukraine.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told reporters that Trump and Putin had agreed on the Zelensky-Putin encounter “within the next two weeks”. But he added, “We don’t know whether the Russian president will have the courage to attend such a summit. Therefore, persuasion is needed.”

Ceasefire?

The Europeans seized on the arrangement of security guarantees. French President Emmanuel Macron said, “The first [priority] is clearly a credible Ukrainian army for the years and decades to come.” Europe would carry its “fair share” of the burden, “so you can count on this as we can continue”.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni continued on the necessity of “how to be sure that [a Russian invasion] won’t happen again, which is the precondition of every kind of peace”.

The Europeans also kept open the issue of a ceasefire. Merz told Trump, “To be honest, we all would like to see a ceasefire, the latest from the next meeting on.”

The Chancellor said he could not imagine a trilateral meeting without a halt to Russia’s invasion: “Let’s work on that and let’s try to put pressure on Russia – because the credibility of these efforts we are undertaking today depend on at least a ceasefire from the beginning of the serious negotiations.”

Macron also supported a truce.

Trump replied, “We’ll see…if we can do that.” However, he again rambled, as in the appearance with Zelensky, that one was not needed as he has already ended “six wars”.

Trump said, “We also need to discuss the possible exchanges of territory, taking into consideration the current line of contact —that means the war zone.”

But Macron assured that the talks did not include Ukraine surrendering any territory, including its area of Donetsk, to Russia.

A Pleasant Meeting in the Oval Office

In contrast to February’s ambush by Vice President J.D. Vance and Trump, Zelensky skillfully navigated Monday’s press appearance before the meeting with Trump and the Europeans, avoiding any tension with his host.

He repeatedly praised Trump as a peacemaker and gave him a letter from First Lady Olena Zelenska to Trump’s wife Melania, implicitly juxtaposing it with Melania Trump’s written appeal to Putin for the release of Ukrainian children deported by the Russians.

Zelensky avoided traps laid by pro-Trump attack “journalists”, emphasizing that Ukraine was purchasing weapons from the US while seeking links such as intelligence-sharing to bolster any security guarantee.

Most of Trump’s commentary was self-promotion and his personal grievances, assailing the media, the Biden Administration, and mail-in ballots. Zelensky never intervened, and explained to a pro-Trump correspondent that while Ukraine’s Constitution barred elections during wartime, they would be held as soon as a truce was established.

That brought an awkward jest from Trump, referring to his continued stay in the White House past 2029: “You can’t have elections under martial law? We’ll see in 3 1/2 years.”

Vance remained silent as he sat alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump’s envoy to Russia, real estate developer Witkoff.