European leaders to join Ukraine’s Zelensky for meeting with Trump

KYIV, Ukraine — European and NATO leaders announced Sunday they will join President Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington for talks with President Trump on ending Russia’s war in Ukraine, with the possibility of U.S. security guarantees now on the negotiating table.

European leaders, including heavyweights France, Britain and Germany, are rallying around the Ukrainian leader after his exclusion from Trump’s summit on Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Their pledge to be at Zelensky’s side at the White House on Monday is an apparent effort to ensure the meeting goes better than the Ukrainian leader’s last one in February, when Trump berated him in a heated Oval Office encounter.

“The Europeans are very afraid of the Oval Office scene being repeated, and so they want to support Mr. Zelensky to the hilt,” said retired French Gen. Dominique Trinquand, a former head of France’s military mission at the United Nations.

“It’s a power struggle and a position of strength that might work with Trump,” he said.

Special U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff said Sunday that Putin agreed at the meeting in Alaska with Trump to allow the U.S. and European allies to offer Ukraine a security guarantee resembling NATO’s collective defense mandate as part of an eventual deal to end the 3½-year war.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, speaking at a news conference in Brussels with Zelensky, said, “We welcome President Trump’s willingness to contribute to Article 5-like security guarantees for Ukraine. And the ‘coalition of the willing’ — including the European Union — is ready to do its share.”

Von der Leyen was joined Sunday by French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Finnish President Alexander Stubb in saying they will take part in Monday’s talks at the White House, as will the secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Mark Rutte.

The European leaders’ demonstration of support could help ease concerns in Kyiv and other European capitals that Ukraine risks being railroaded into a peace deal that Trump says he wants to broker with Russia.

Neil Melvin, director of international security at the London-based Royal United Services Institute, said European leaders are trying to “shape this fast-evolving agenda.” After the Alaska summit, the idea of a ceasefire appears all but abandoned, with the narrative shifting toward Putin’s agenda of ensuring Ukraine does not join NATO or even the European Union.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that a possible ceasefire is “not off the table” but that the best way to end the war would be through a “full peace deal.”

Putin has implied that he sees Europe as a hindrance to negotiations. He has also resisted meeting Zelensky in person, saying that such a meeting can only take place once the groundwork for a peace deal has been laid.

Speaking to reporters after his meeting with Trump, the Russian leader raised the idea that Kyiv and other European capitals could “create obstacles” to derail potential progress with “behind-the-scenes intrigue.”

For now, the Zelensky meeting offers the Europeans the “only way” to get into the discussions about the future of Ukraine and European security, Melvin said.

But the sheer number of European leaders potentially in attendance means the group will have to be “mindful” not to give “contradictory” messages, he said.

“The risk is they look heavy-handed and are ganging up on Trump,” he added. “Trump won’t want to be put in a corner.”

Although details remain hazy on what Article 5-like security guarantees from the U.S. and Europe would entail for Ukraine, it could mirror NATO membership terms, in which an attack on one member of the alliance is seen as an attack on all.

In remarks made on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Witkoff said Friday’s meeting with Trump was the first time Putin has been heard to agree to such an arrangement.

Zelensky continues to stress the importance of both U.S. and European involvement in any negotiations.

“A security guarantee is a strong army. Only Ukraine can provide that. Only Europe can finance this army, and weapons for this army can be provided by our domestic production and European production. But there are certain things that are in short supply and are only available in the United States,” he said at the news conference Sunday alongside Von der Leyen.

Zelensky also countered Trump’s assertion — which aligned with Putin’s preference — that the two sides should negotiate a complete end to the war rather than first securing a ceasefire. Zelensky said a ceasefire would provide breathing room to review Putin’s demands.

“It’s impossible to do this under the pressure of weapons,” he said. “Putin does not want to stop the killing, but he must do it.”

Kullab and Leicester write for the Associated Press and reported from Kyiv and Le Pecq, France, respectively. AP writers Pan Pylas in London and Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England, contributed to this report.