In the fast-paced swirl of meetings in Washington on Monday, US President Donald Trump assembled what appear to be the building blocks of a peace process in Eastern Europe.
No one proclaimed that a moment of triumph was at hand, but taking steps towards ending the war in Ukraine is the focus of the US leader as well as Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the European leaders gathered in the White House.
First, it is very clear how important the role of diplomacy to release the prisoners of war captured by both sides will be in delivering an end to the conflict. This is where the Russians and Ukrainians have already been able to transcend differences for several years and share a consensus that soldiers on both sides must be brought home with the help of foreign partners such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
For Mr Trump, the orchestration of the past week has played to his skill set. The summit in Alaska with Mr Putin opened a new stage of negotiations. Those talks were set against an important visual backdrop. A red carpet was laid out at the Alaskan air base for the Russian President, while a B-2 bomber also carried out a flypast and F-22 stealth jets accompanied the Russian presidential plane to land.
On Monday, the US Marine Corps guard of honour was on hand as the European leaders arrived first.
Mr Zelenskyy addressed the Trump administration’s criticism of his attire during a meeting in February by arriving in a sharply cut French-style military jacket. As his tailor Viktor Anisimov said, it should not be about the clothes but who is with Ukraine as a country. Nonetheless, Mr Trump said Mr Zelenskyy looked fabulous – to widespread diplomatic relief after the Ukrainian leader was thrown out of the White House during the earlier meeting.
Inside the building, there was then a meeting involving the Ukrainian President, an East Room meeting with the other European leaders and aides, a break-off for a 40-minute call with Mr Putin and a subsequent session with just the leaders. A letter from Mr Zelenskyy’s wife to First Lady Melania Trump was passed on, highlighting the plight of Ukrainian children taken from the war zone.
What came out of the day was a direction of travel for this initiative that can best be sequenced as bilat, trilat and quadrilateral. Mr Trump said Mr Putin was willing to meet Mr Zelenskyy in a bilateral, and he said this should happen before the end of August. The US leader said he would join the pair after that discussion at a venue yet to be determined. French President Emmanuel Macron then added another level to the process where the Europeans would gain a seat at the table.
A social media post from Mr Zelenskyy summarised what unlocked the prospect of a peace process moving forward on this basis. “We discussed security guarantees,” he said. “This is a key issue, a starting point towards ending the war. We appreciate the important signal from the United States regarding its readiness to support and be part of these guarantees.
“A lot of attention today was given to the return of our children, to the release of prisoners of war and civilians held by Russia. We agreed to work on this. The US President also supported a meeting at the level of leaders. Such a meeting is necessary to resolve sensitive issues.”
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer told broadcasters that he had seen “real breakthrough” in Mr Trump’s thinking on an “Article 5-like guarantee” for Kyiv. Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte told Fox News that details of the US guarantee supporting a coalition of the willing from Europe would be worked out in parallel. A British official briefed the press that the US was “back in the fold”.
There is little doubt that Mr Trump has positioned the US as the broker in the process. At one point, Mr Zelenskyy and Mr Trump were photographed against a map showing Russian-held territory and Ukraine’s shaded fortified section of Donetsk that the Kremlin seeks as an outcome to the talks. The image was clear even if leaders such as German Chancellor Friedrich Merz insisted that land swaps were not discussed in detail at the White House.
The building blocks for what happens next are clear. The human element such as the transfer of PoWs, the territorial concessions on the ground and the overarching security framework are now on the table. It is up to Mr Trump to oversee the set of meetings that will bring together the main actors after almost four years of war.
With that in mind, there was one telling moment as Mr Zelenskyy wrapped up his “very good conversation with President Trump”. He said that it really was “the best one” but then held back to revise that assessment. “Sorry, maybe the best one will be in the future.”
