1: United States President Donald Trump said that Ukraine can end the war anytime its President Zelenskyy wishes.
2: Zelenskyy, along with key European leaders, are scheduled to visit the White House on Monday to hold talks with Trump.
3: Putin, after the Alaska meet said, the US and Ukraine's European allies could extend a security guarantee similar to NATO’s collective defence clause to Ukraine.
“BIG PROGRESS ON RUSSIA. STAY TUNED! President DJT,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social account.
As for Zelenskyy, who is scheduled to visit Washington along with European and NATO leaders on Monday for talk with Trump, the latter wrote, "President Zelenskyy of Ukraine can end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight. Remember how it started. No getting back Obama given Crimea (12 years ago, without a shot being fired!), and NO GOING INTO NATO BY UKRAINE. Some things never change!!!"
US special envoy Steve Witkoff told CNN that Putin had agreed the United States and its European allies could extend Ukraine a security guarantee similar to NATO’s collective defence clause.
“We were able to win the following concession: that the United States could offer Article 5-like protection, which is one of the real reasons why Ukraine wants to be in NATO,” Witkoff said on "State of the Union", describing it as the first time he had heard Putin accept such a provision.
It “was the first time we had ever heard the Russians agree to that,” said Witkoff, who called it “game-changing.”
Witkoff explained the arrangement as a compromise. “Putin has said that a red flag is NATO admission,” he noted. “So what we were discussing was … that the United States and other European nations could effectively offer Article 5-like language to cover a security guarantee.”
He added that any agreement would ultimately depend on Ukraine’s acceptance of the proposal.
European leaders convened for an online meeting before the one scheduled at the White House, and included several of Ukraine’s key allies. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron joined the talks, with Zelenskyy appearing on screen. Finland’s President Alexander Stubb and Poland’s foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski also attended the meeting.
After the meeting, Zelenskyy on X said, "This is a historic decision that the United States is ready to take part in security guarantees for Ukraine. Security guarantees, as a result of our joint work, must really be very practical, delivering protection on land, in the air, and at sea, and must be developed with Europe’s participation."
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasized that there would be “additional consequences,” as Trump had warned before his meeting with Putin, if a ceasefire was not achieved. Rubio also stressed that no truce could be reached without Ukraine’s direct participation.
“Now, ultimately, if there isn’t a peace agreement, if there isn’t an end of this war, the president’s been clear, there are going to be consequences,” Rubio said on ABC’s This Week. “But we’re trying to avoid that. And the way we’re trying to avoid those consequences is with an even better consequence, which is peace, the end of hostilities.”
At the same time, Rubio cautioned that “we’re not at the precipice of a peace agreement” and reaching one “would not be easy and would take a lot of work.”
“We made progress in the sense that we identified potential areas of agreement, but there remain some big areas of disagreement. So we’re still a long ways off,” he said.
